


Catalyst

by twisted_dendrites



Category: Naruto
Genre: (for Sakura Hiden), (mostly), Background Sai/Ino, Bisexual Uzumaki Karin, Bisexual Yamanaka Ino, Blank Period (Naruto), Canon Compliant for Shippuden, Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Trauma, F/F, Fix-It, Growing Up, Kissing, Lesbian Haruno Sakura, Past Sakura/Ino, Self-Acceptance, Self-Doubt, Sunagakure | Hidden Sand Village
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:20:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 64,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25228195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twisted_dendrites/pseuds/twisted_dendrites
Summary: It was Sasuke who had caught her attention and drawn the course of her life for a little while, and his betrayal was an embarrassing blemish on the map of life. Or so each kunoichi thought. Really, he was just a tiny coincidence in the vast swirling cosmos of a larger picture.(Follows along with the events of Shippuden, remixes the events of Sakura Hiden, and goes on from there)
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Karin
Comments: 66
Kudos: 120





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've finally finished this!! I feel like I've been working on this for a while, much longer than I anticipated anyway (though I guess it only actually took four months which isn't long at all). I started this right when the pandemic began to kick off here, and ever since then, everything has just been chaos. I thought being home all the time would make it easier to write, but no, actually the opposite. There was a lot of starting and stopping when writing this, which I don't like to do because it risks losing the voice of the narrative. Anyhow, I'm excited that I can finally start posting this. The only other note I have is that the chapter length is pretty variable in this one (some are around 2k while others are around 6k words). Other than that, our story begins right after Sasuke fights Danzou.

“And? What do I gain if you join me?” His question was rhetorical, his tone steely and uncaring. He was bored of this conversation already, only picking at an old wound to see if he could get satisfaction from any blood that welled up. His left eye was bleeding from the jutsu he had just used on Danzou, but he stared at the pink-haired woman like he was challenging her to give him a reason to use it again. “What are you planning?”

From where she was lying on the ground, Karin studied the woman who dared to stand so defiantly in front of the cold-blooded kinslayer. Her vision seemed to bloom bright as she took in determined green eyes and the firm jaw, almost whiting out entirely as she thought she recognized something about this kunoichi’s chakra signature. But then again, maybe it was just the fatal wound in her chest and the blood loss causing her to hallucinate in her final moments.

By the way Sasuke-kun addressed her, she was his acquaintance, not Karin’s, and maybe Karin was mixing up his thoughts with her own. And though these very well might be her last moments, there was nothing that seemed so important as pinpointing this woman’s identity—finding out exactly what made her seem so familiar. _Is she an old friend of his…? A lover he once mentioned…? But there’s something…_

“I’m not planning anything.” The Leaf ninja’s voice was strong, considering the circumstances. Even in her state, Karin could sense the tightly wound precision in her chakra— _perhaps she was a medical ninja?_ “I’ve always regretted that time when you left Konoha, and I didn’t go with you.”

The volume of her speech faded in and out of Karin’s ears as her consciousness slipped from her. Surprisingly, she wasn’t in pain, even after that hole Sasuke had literally pierced through her heart. In all her life, she’d experienced pain after pain. She knew what agony her body could put her through. But this? Even as she noticed the cool slick of blood trailing from her eye down her cheek, the hurt could not touch her. Instead, all her focus hung around the one who was either brave enough or stupid enough to face down Sasuke.

The shinobi gripped her hand into a fist, thumping it against her chest with conviction. “I’ll do anything you wish, Sasuke-kun. I don’t want to have any more regrets.”

_Lying_ , Karin’s instincts told her, _she’s lying._ _And_ _if she can’t even fool me in this state…_

Sasuke narrowed his eyes, suspicious. “You think you know what I want?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll do anything you say.”

“I’m going to _destroy_ Konoha.” The temperature around him dropped significantly. Karin felt ripples of frosty energy lapping at her side, sinking into her skin. This was different than just the sensation of losing too much blood. This ice pierced through her very core. “ _That_ is my wish. Would you really betray Konoha for my sake?”

The kunoichi was unfazed. “Yes. If you tell me to.”

But Karin still wasn’t convinced by her words, and apparently neither was Sasuke. She saw him raise his arm to point at where she was collapsed on the ground. He didn’t even look at her.

“Then prove it. Finish her off. If you do, then I’ll believe you.”

Just as Karin could sense that the kunoichi had been lying, she could sense that Sasuke was not. The realization should have been more shocking, but mostly Karin just felt numb. Her body was already in shock from the injury, and Sasuke’s feelings for her were not as unexpected as she had continually pretended. Deep down, hadn’t she always known? He’d even changed so much since they’d left the north hideout together...

A surprised expression slipped out onto the woman’s face, though she quickly obscured it with a frown. She clenched her jaw tighter as the tip of a kunai peeked out from under her cloak.

“Who is she?”

“A member of my organization, Taka. As you can see, she’s useless now. You’re a medical ninja, right? You can be her replacement. It’ll be perfect.”

Footsteps carried the medi-nin closer until Karin couldn’t see her face anymore. The kunai in her hands glinted, catching light at different angles because the hands holding it were trembling. Maybe it was because death already seemed inevitable at this point, but Karin did not feel afraid of this woman. The bigger threat seemed to be the man towering over her.

“What’s wrong, Sakura? Can’t do it?” He sneered, amused by the situation.

If Karin had any capacity for feeling left, she might have been repulsed by him. Instead she just waited, her eyes trained on the wobbling kunai that she knew would not be her end.

Sasuke began to walk around the ninja— _Sakura_ —and Karin could feel the channels of chakra in his arm activating. A feeling like static prickled across her scalp, and she felt the pressure behind his attack before she even heard it materialize.

“Stop, Sasuke...” she croaked in warning.

Merciless, Chidori burst to life in his hand. Sakura gasped, paralyzed, as he reeled back to hit her with the ball of lightning. The only thing that separated her from Karin’s own fate was the man who swept down between them, deflecting the blow.

“How far you’ve fallen, Sasuke!”

Another Leaf ninja that Karin didn’t know. His voice was stern and almost disappointed, as if he had once been some kind of mentor to the Uchiha. Her suspicions were confirmed as he spoke to both Sasuke and Sakura. _So they were former teammates, and he was their leader._

At his instruction, Sakura hoisted Karin over her shoulder and leapt away from what would become a skirmish between teacher and student. Karin lost interest in the outcome almost immediately, her more pressing concerns all centered on the strong arms that carried her so gently to safety.

Sakura set her down on the ground, away from the battle, and set to work with Mystical Palm Technique. The healing jutsu felt like rain on desert soil, and Karin’s skin could not drink in the convalescent aura fast enough. Hot and cold sensations poured over her skin like waves of tiger balm. It was hard to keep her eyes open, but she squinted just enough to watch as her supposed enemy saved her life.

“You...”

Sakura shushed her. “Please, don’t talk yet. Just a little more, and I’ll be done.”

The medical ninja was not holding back with her healing either. Karin could feel her cells regenerating, she could feel her pulse strengthening, her breathing falling into an even pattern. The palm on her chest was firm but comforting. The next time Karin looked at the woman’s face she saw tears, and _that_ , more than anything else, _hurt_.

_You’re my enemy...I don’t want to know how you feel, so please, don’t make such a sad face. Don’t cry in front of me...Damn it…_

As her vitals came back to her, so did her clarity. This woman was not her enemy, in fact, they might as well be on the same side now. The real problem was the slithering cold that emanated from Sasuke. In fact, if she could only just admit it to herself...the real problem _was_ Sasuke.

“Sasuke’s chakra has gotten colder,” she whispered. She might not want to hear or believe it, but this person had to know. This person couldn’t come so close to falling for his tricks again, not after saving Karin’s life. “He isn’t the person you once knew.”

Sakura inhaled sharply, but said nothing. She continued with her work dutifully, like the impartial medi-nin she had trained to be. Like the subservient healing tool Karin had once been for Kusagakure…

When the last tendrils of blue healing chakra disseminated through Karin’s chest, Sakura helped her sit up, then abruptly dashed to the stone guard wall of the bridge. She jumped from one side to the other, ostensibly looking for something.

_What’s she doing?_

It took her until Sakura jumped over the side of the bridge for her to remember that Sasuke and his former sensei were still going at it. Funny, how her brain so easily let go of one thing and so eagerly latched on to another.

~~

Sakura knew it was a mistake from the moment she laid eyes on him, and yet, there was no going back. Nothing about him was the same, and yet, it was. She didn’t want to believe that he would ask her to kill someone defenseless and unrelated to the situation, but she couldn’t say she felt surprised.

When he stepped around to her back, her mind pulled her into a memory from the night when he left Konoha. She was thirteen years old, and she thought that if there was one thing she could do, as useless as she had proven to be to her team so far, it would be to keep everyone together.

How wrong she had been.

“ _Thank you.”_

_And then dizzying pain and darkness._

Her body froze, ready to reenact the memory.

“Stop, Sasuke...”

This dying kunoichi had more compassion for Sakura, who was supposed to have killed her, than Sasuke had ever shown her in her entire life.

Her reaction was too slow to counter him, but somehow, before she knew it, she was pushed out of the way.

_Kakashi-sensei to the rescue, again._

Relief and self-loathing mixed into a confused froth in the pit of her stomach, worsening as she listened to her sensei blame himself for everything.

Just once she wanted to do something worthwhile. Just once, but even now her actions were meaningless, and she needed to be bailed out as usual.

When Kakashi directed her to take the girl away and heal her, Sakura was almost glad to get out of his way.

Very soon after beginning her examination of the wounded ninja, Sakura recognized the cause of injury. Chidori. Sasuke had speared her through the chest, barely missing her heart. The path of damage actually frayed a bit on the inside, as if the kunoichi had just managed to move in time to avoid receiving a direct kill shot.

The thought of such a feat nearly brought Sakura to tears. If Kakashi hadn’t swooped in and redirected that hit, she would have ended up just like this or worse. And here, this ninja, who had every reason to trust Sasuke, had managed to dodge an attack of betrayal.

But Sakura kept her expression blank. She’d worked at the hospital in Konoha a little bit, and she knew it was best practice to remain stoic. When the girl tried to speak, she encouraged her to save her energy. She didn’t even know this person, and yet she’d be damned if she didn’t put her all into healing her.

When she’d done as much as she could, she helped the woman sit up. For someone who had been so close to dying, her aura was unexpectedly steady—enough to feel oddly comforting. Stepping away, Sakura couldn’t help but give her a once over. She seemed in stable condition, and—Sakura couldn’t help but notice—striking.

Clanging of metal-on-metal and splashing faintly rang out from over her shoulder, below the bridge on which they were standing, and Sakura tore her attention away from her patient. Gathering her resolve, she jumped from one side of the bridge to the other, searching for the source of the sounds of fighting. When her eye finally caught the two, she saw an opportunity for redemption.

Sasuke stood with his back to her, all of his attention on Kakashi. If Sakura could just sneak up behind him, then she could do to him what he had done to her all those years ago. Only this time, she would finish the job.

She stepped over the side of the bridge, blood rushing to her head as she crept upside-down on the underside of the bridge’s arch.

Sasuke’s own current teammates weren’t safe from him now. Yes, Sakura’s feelings for him were complicated, but that hardly mattered now. He was reprehensible, unforgivable, a monster.

She readied the kunai in her hand, and this time she wasn’t shaking.

Her chakra control was precise enough that she knew Sasuke didn’t sense her coming. She dropped down behind him with barely a sound. She raised her arm, ready to strike.

It was only when Kakashi’s eyes widened that she lost her momentum. His stare reflected the death of a thousand dying dreams of Team 7 ever reuniting again, and suddenly she couldn’t do it.

_Damn it! Even though I had my resolve…_

Sasuke noticed her now.

“Sakura!” Kakashi shouted in warning, but it was too late.

Again Sasuke was about to get the best of her hesitation.

Again, someone else interfered.

Naruto stood before her, every bit of the hero that he so often proclaimed he would be when he was just a bratty kid. And she—she stood behind him, assuming her usual role of the one who needed saving, the one who either got out of the way or was in the way.

She’d failed yet again. She’d failed Team 7, she’d failed the Allied Shinobi Forces, she’d even failed the red-head on the bridge above them. Her next breath should have been one of relief, but instead her lungs filled with a heavy air of disappointment. If she went on like this, it wouldn’t be long before she drowned in it.


	2. Chapter 2

Sakura had healed her enough that this was her chance to run for it. All of the Leaf ninja and Sasuke were distracted by each other under the bridge, and frankly, none of them would care that much if she made a break for it. She might have considered it too, had she anywhere to go.

A painful echo from her past haunted her.

“ _We’re only letting you stay because you have nowhere to go, so you better make yourself useful.”_

So she stayed slumped against the stone guard wall of the bridge and waited for someone else to inevitably decide her fate. She could make out the yelling and the fighting. She felt Zetsu’s chakra, and eventually Madara’s. More arguing, and there was an awful pulling feeling in the atmosphere that Karin had come to recognize as Madara’s space-time jutsu. Then, only the Leaf shinobi remained.

Her captors made their way back to the top of the bridge, circling around her.

The newcomer, Uzumaki Naruto, as she’d gathered by all of the shouting, was groaning and clutching at his stomach. His complexion was faintly blue, and he tottered across the cobbled path like a drunk.

The medical ninja, Sakura, was rummaging through her first-aid pouch, perhaps looking for an antidote to some kind of poison. She looked up, only once, as if she felt Karin’s eyes on her. When Karin didn’t break eye contact immediately, the medi-nin looked her over—almost as if she were evaluating whether her previous medical treatments had proved to be enough. When she turned back to her rummaging, Karin let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.

Then the sensei of this motley shinobi duo approached her.

“Just so you know, we’re going to be taking you back to Konoha with us. I’m sure you can imagine why, but please don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.” For someone taking her prisoner, he sounded kind and bizarrely apologetic. Even tapping into her higher level sensory perception did not reveal any duplicity from him.

In the end, it didn’t really matter to her. Regardless of where she went, people would always find a way to use her.

“I won’t try anything,” she informed him.

She braced herself to be chained or tied, but even weirder, this man just came into her space and slung her over his shoulder. For a moment she was too stunned to think, and by the time her mind finally caught up, the three Leaf shinobi were bantering among themselves.

Maybe Sasuke really had killed her, and this was all some strange fever dream as she bled out. She couldn’t wrap her mind around the utterly incomprehensible way these Leaf ninja were interacting with each other. Almost as if they were friends...No, not even just that. Almost as if they were _family_.

And even to an outsider like her, they were not unkind. It just didn’t make any sense.

“By the way, Kakashi-sensei, who are you carrying?”

Karin looked at the shinobi who had inquired about her and searched his features for any hint of malice. To her surprise, there were none. He seemed curious, and if she didn’t know any better she might have thought he even appeared friendly. There was a certain warmth about him, so different than anyone she was used to.

“She’s a friend of Sasuke,” Sakura told him politely.

“I’m not his friend anymore,” Karin corrected her, indignantly.

Sakura’s face fell a bit, and Karin suddenly felt a little guilty for the sharpness of her tone. She wasn’t trying to be argumentative, she just didn’t want these Leaf ninja to think she cared to associate with Sasuke after what had happened. Karin herself wasn’t so sure she ever wanted to interact with him again…

“There are a lot of questions I have for her, so I’m bringing her back to the village,” Kakashi explained.

“Ah, so we’re going back to Konoha?”

“Not quite. We left something back in Iron Country, remember?”

Naruto furrowed his brow in puzzlement. Before he could figure out his sensei’s meaning, great stalks of wood burst from under his feet, sending stones from the bridge’s structure flying. Instinctively Karin tried to curl up, which made her cling tighter to the Leaf jounin. Kakashi raised his arms to block both of them from getting hit by any debris.

The wood continued to surge, eventually forming a tree house jail cell for the jinchuuriki. As it rose in height, Naruto began to sway and covered his mouth like he was holding back from vomiting.

Other than protecting themselves from the blast, neither Kakashi nor Sakura seemed concerned by the wood-style user in their presence. When Karin finally saw him, she realized it was yet another Leaf nin.

As the pattern went, all four of the Konoha shinobi began to bicker.

“You sent him just in time.”

“What?! Of course I didn’t! You told me to take him back to Konoha! And that’s what I was going to do until he dug a hole through the floor of the inn—”

“Hey, Yamato-taichou, do you really need to bring that up—?”

“Who do you think had to speak to the innkeeper? Do you know how much it would cost to have that fixed? And now I’m going to have to help them—”

“Well, well, he did save our lives though...”

The conversation steered towards their fight with Sasuke, but their tones were all light. It didn’t feel like they were taking him seriously enough, and for some reason Karin was annoyed. At some point, she couldn’t stand to listen to how casually they spoke about him, like he was just another one of their own, carefree and apparently willing to waste time squabbling over petty nonsense. And maybe Sasuke came from that, and maybe he had been that way once, but he certainly was far from it now. If they didn’t come to terms with that, it would just mean trouble for everyone, including herself.

“Sasuke’s chakra has become darker and colder,” she interrupted.

The conversation evaporated, and all four Leaf shinobi turned their eyes to her. She stared back, waiting for any follow up questions or challenges. She was ready to defend her assertion.

Instead, Naruto just said, “He’s still Sasuke.”

And the other ninja seemed to accept this and move on.

Baffled, Karin didn’t respond. _Blood loss and hallucinations for sure_ , she thought to herself. She might have suspected that she’d already died and gone to hell, but nothing about the situation was particularly torturous. Just incomprehensible.

The Leaf shinobi had started up their conversation again, and the wooden cage was being lowered to the ground. Eventually Naruto was released to stand among them, and then Yamato was leaving to “go fix that damn hole in the inn.”

“Well, let’s get going then!” Naruto sauntered ahead, leading the way back to Iron Country. Kakashi and Sakura followed along without question.

Karin’s head was spinning. These people seemed genuinely nice, and they all treated her with undeserved respect. Her own teammate, Sasuke, had tried to kill her, tried to get someone else to kill her, and finally had let her become a prisoner of Konoha.

She couldn’t even begin to think about what had become of Suigetsu and Juugo.

~~

They found Lee, Sai, Kiba, and Akamaru just where Sakura had left them. Immediately upon seeing them, Sakura felt _so_ stupid. To think that she’d gone as far as to poison her own comrades in order to unsuccessfully confront Sasuke. How had she ever thought she could measure up against him?

Just thinking about the static of Chidori crackling at her back was making the hair on her arms stand on end.

Naruto rushed up to them first. “How could they be so lazy when you guys were in trouble?”

Sakura laughed nervously. She wanted to explain that this was her fault, but the words were caught in a tangled lump at the back of her throat. If Kakashi hadn’t been there, if Naruto hadn’t been there, her recklessness would have gotten her killed.

“Sakura, they wanted to help you. Make sure you apologize after you wake them up,” Kakashi chided her.

“Yes, sensei.”

She glanced up at him with a half-hearted smile. He was still carrying the Taka member on his back, and even that added to Sakura’s embarrassment. _What an idiot she probably thinks I am...Sasuke was about to kill her, a member of his current team...He killed Danzou…How did I ever think I stood a chance? And to refuse help…?_

Naruto stepped up to Lee, muttering. It looked like he might kick the sleeping shinobi.

“Naruto! It’s my fault they’re like this, so please, be gentle waking them...”

To her relief, he didn’t kick anyone. Instead he sprawled out on the grass beside Lee while mumbling something about being exhausted. _Well, Naruto never failed to do the unexpected..._

“You’re sleeping too?” Sakura asked incredulously.

“It’s your poison that’s made him like that...Sakura, was it? Though, I guess he’s pretty carefree to already be asleep...” The prisoner’s tone was teasing.

A smile crept across Sakura’s face, though she turned and directed it towards Naruto. She wasn’t sure she should be smiling at something their captive said. Her face had gone warm too, and she definitely didn’t want the kunoichi noticing _that_.

_Leave it to Sasuke to be traveling with the most stunning woman, something he wouldn’t even care about..._

“Well, we really don’t have time. Please wake everyone up, Sakura.”

She proceeded with the task, her fingers moving mechanically. She’d been through so much training with Tsunade that she could formulate antidotes in her sleep. Needles didn’t faze her, and she inoculated her sleeping friends without flinching, then massaged at the injection sites to work the antidote into their bloodstreams faster.

One by one they woke up, and she gathered up her spent sharps and packed them away separately in order to dispose of them later. As she put away her things, the ninja came out of their sleep, groggy and confused. She waited for them to fully wake before apologizing, and though clearly unhappy with the outcome, they seemed to forgive her.

She didn’t expect to feel such relief after they accepted her apology. As they groused to each other, Sakura found herself feeling sorry all over again. She should have never put them under to go after Sasuke on her own, and now she had to live with the regret that was crawling across her skin. It made her feel as sick as Naruto had been earlier.

She finished stowing the rest of her supplies and stood up quickly, ready to get moving again. There were too many things that they needed to do right now, and as Kakashi had said, they didn’t have much time. She couldn’t waste hers by wallowing in her emotions.

Sai got her attention and waved her over. He was opening and closing his mouth like there was pain in his jaw.

“What’s wrong? Still feeling sick?” Sakura asked, coming closer.

“Look.” He craned his neck and stuck his tongue out for her to examine.

“The seal is gone,” she gasped, flicking her eyes to meet Sai’s.

He seemed to have wanted her confirmation, and he closed his mouth and nodded almost imperceptibly. Though never an expressive individual, it was clear that the wheels were turning in his head, and eventually he let himself assess the situation out loud.

“The Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal was given to me by Danzou when I was in Root. This kind of sealing jutsu could only be removed by the one who placed it, unless—” Sai looked at Kakashi sharply, searching for an answer.

If Kakashi hadn’t been carrying someone on his back, he probably would have shrugged. His tone was lackadaisical. “So it seems...”

Sai’s features were frozen with shock. “I can’t believe it. Danzou...”

“Why don’t you ask her? She knows all about it,” Kakashi said, tilting his head to indicate the ninja on his back.

Sai just stared at her wordlessly. Sakura stared too, wondering what the kunoichi would say. Sakura hadn’t showed up until everything was basically over. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear all of the details. She already had witnessed how ruthless Sasuke had become. He had proved it in the way he so carelessly asked her to kill his own teammate. Sakura was no fan of Danzou, but even still, the reality that Sasuke had gone after the Hokage was disturbing.

“Sasuke got him,” Karin stated plainly, not bothering to wait for Sai to ask.

“Sasuke?” Sai repeated. He seemed to surprised to comprehend what she had said.

The other Leaf ninja to his right and left jumped in.

“You mean Sasuke killed him?” Lee asked, point blank.

“Why would he kill the Hokage?” Kiba sounded almost indignant, and it sent a pang through Sakura’s chest. It seemed like he was having the same kind of thoughts that had driven her to seek Sasuke on her own. _Sure, he was a rogue ninja, but he couldn’t be that bad, after all, he was still Sasuke..._

“I don’t really have anything else to say,” Karin concluded.

Kiba stood up and stalked towards Kakashi, who made no attempt to retreat.

“Tell us more! What’s going on? I don’t understand anything!”

Karin ignored him. Her eyes were flat and her expression was stony. In fact, she even looked a little pale, and Sakura felt a compulsion to check her vitals to see if she needed any additional healing.

Naruto distracted everyone’s attention by mumbling loudly in his sleep. Frustrated from Karin’s silence, Kiba whirled on Naruto, looking like he might kick the shinobi out of his slumber.

“Wake the hell up, Naruto!” he shouted, and Lee had to hold him back.

Sai still seemed to be on pause, and Kakashi looked exasperated. Naruto was irritated to be pulled out of sleep and definitely did not help to raise the morale. Without Lee there, he and Kiba most certainly would had gotten into a scrap.

Sakura stole another glance at the woman on her sensei’s back and wondered what she made of all of this.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for brief vague insinuation of past sexual harassment

As they entered the village, Kakashi directed the rest of the group to disperse.

“I’m just going to be taking her to the Interrogation Force and then meeting up with the Council. You guys don’t need to tag along.

Kiba and Lee peeled away from the group first. When Naruto and Sai stayed behind, Sakura realized that they must be waiting for her.

She glanced at Kakashi and the kunoichi on his back, and her head pulsed with heat. Something was itching at the back of her mind, like she’d forgotten something or left something undone. When her feet didn’t move to join her teammates, she assumed that this had something to do with that woman. A glint of light that reflected from her glasses pricked Sakura’s eyes, drawing her attention, and confirming her suspicions as she could literally hear the blood rushing through her ears, red as the hair of the woman.

The strength of her reluctance to let this person out of her sight was immediately concerning, and Sakura racked her brain for some type of jutsu that might be causing this and to what possible advantage the kunoichi would have to cast it. She could easily tell that it wasn’t a genjutsu, and besides that, her imagination came up short.

She wasn’t sure trusting her gut was a good idea, since it hadn’t been making such great suggestions recently, but her gut won out in the end. She kept pace with Kakashi and scrambled for some excuse to accompany him to the Interrogation Unit.

“I’ll go with you, Kakashi-sensei. I want to double-check that she healed properly and that there won’t be any issues. It will be easier for the Interrogation Squad if she’s in good condition.”

Kakashi was impassive. Naruto whined a bit, but he eventually took off with Sai. The walk to the Interrogation Unit wasn’t much longer, but the silence that accompanied them was borderline eerie.

Now that the other chuunin (and Naruto) were gone, Sakura didn’t hold back from staring at Kakashi’s charge. She was standing on the side of his covered eye, and though she knew that he would probably be able to tell that she was looking, she also knew that he wouldn’t say anything. If the woman noticed, she didn’t bring it up either.

There wasn’t anything about this woman’s features that were familiar to Sakura, and she scrutinized the other studiously. Long red hair. Wire-rimmed glasses. Dark eyes. Uneven skin, riddled with bruises and scratches and what looked like bite marks. Tired eyes. Stable chakra flow, though neat enough to indicate she was also a medical ninjutsu user or at least had the natural capability.

Sakura’s stomach gurgled with unease, and she mentally ran through scroll after scroll that she’d studied under Tsunade about kekkei genkai, passive jutsu, medical abnormalities, and anything else she could think of that might explain her attraction to this stranger. She tried to think if anything had happened on the bridge that she may have overlooked. _Had Sasuke done something…?_

Her heart had already been vibrating like a kettle about to boil over, and when his image flashed through her consciousness, she thought it might seize altogether. The blood in her face swelled behind her skin as she pieced the clues together.

Sasuke…

_Ino_.

Of course, it wasn’t that this kunoichi on Kakashi’s back looked familiar. It was the _feelings_ Sakura had when looking at her. It was the fact that Sasuke was there yet again to throw a wrench in the situation.

Blushing furiously now, Sakura brought her hands to her face. Now was _not_ the time to unpack what she’d unwittingly dug up when rooting around her old memories. The Unit’s building was well within their line of vision now, and she didn’t need a team of highly trained interrogators to see her looking like an embarrassed tomato.

She was a medical ninja, damn it! She had more self-control than this! She tensed the muscles in her core and concentrated on the movement of her chakra. She increased the flow that she usually diverted from her normal reserves to her sealed pool. As expected, a wave of fatigue and a sense of calm flooded through her. The rest of her body—her flickering heartbeat, the damp sweat that had broken across her brow, her heated skin, and shallow breaths—everything had to fall back into a neutral state so she could keep up the delicate balance of her chakra streams.

By the time they made it to the Unit, Sakura was able to release her focus and return her chakra state to its usual flow. Kakashi let the kunoichi down from his back and spoke to Ibiki, letting him know that Sakura was going to check her over for any remaining injuries before they released her to the Unit’s custody. Another member of the Interrogation Force led Sakura and the former member of Taka to what would be the latter’s holding cell.

“I’m just going to make sure there are no glaring issues that I missed or that didn’t heal up all the way,” Sakura stated, a forced calmness to her tone. She raised her right hand which was already emanating the turquoise healing chakra.

Now that she had figured out the meaning behind this person’s pull, she didn’t have any more reason to stick around. She hoped to get this examination over with quickly so she could go to the training grounds and work through her emotions with a few trees and a pile of rocks.

The woman sighed. The corner of her mouth ticked up ever so slightly, but not enough to count as anything near an actual smile.

“Thanks.” Her voice was so quiet, it was like she hadn’t meant to actually say it out loud.

“What’s your name?” The words were out of Sakura’s mouth before she even processed that she was saying something.

“Karin.”

The name rested like sun-baked stone at the back of her throat. She forced herself to smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Karin.”

~~

Karin felt Sakura’s eyes on her all the way to the Interrogation Unit. Though the Konoha shinobi was very unsubtle with her open staring, Karin supposed that they were in Leaf territory now, so her captors could focus their attention elsewhere than keeping guard.

Still, it didn’t add up that this pink-haired woman seemed more absorbed with her presence than the man literally carrying her on his back did.

It was even more puzzling that she couldn’t sense any maliciousness or even suspicion from the kunoichi. Logic dictated that the only reason an enemy would care to keep her under such close watch would be to prevent her from trying to escape or lash out or cause some other trouble. But Karin didn’t get that sense from the medi-nin, and it wasn’t because she had barriers in place to mask her emotions. Much like all of the other Leaf ninja that Karin had encountered so far, other than Sasuke, Sakura was just as unabashedly as open as the rest of them.

That being the case, Karin still couldn’t make sense of what the other was thinking or what her motives might be.

When they got to the Interrogation Force, Sakura accompanied her to her cell and gave her a final medical exam. Karin hadn’t expected this kind of treatment, it seemed overly kind, but she figured it would be easier for the detectives if she were physically and mentally sound enough to answer questions. Konoha’s tactic seemed to rely on the assumption that if they treated her with respect, she would be swayed to divulge everything she knew about Taka and the Akatsuki.

She wasn’t sure where her loyalty stood anymore.

Regardless, the way that Sakura was acting seemed out of place, even with the Interrogation Unit’s interests in mind. _She_ wasn’t going to be the one asking any questions, and even if it was her duty to be thorough with her medical care, Karin knew from first-hand experience that there were plenty of ways to heal someone without being gentle.

She searched the focused green eyes before her for some explanation, but nothing came forward. All she saw was someone very serious about her work, referencing memories of her previous training in order to make sure she was doing everything exactly right. When their eyes locked together, Karin was met with even more confusion.

The way Sakura was looking at her…

No one ever really looked at Karin as anything but a tool like gauze or a tourniquet or a syringe. Ever since childhood, her body was a living first-aid kit for others’ use. No one bothered to look for humanity under her magical healing skin, but as she got older, some were content just to look under her clothes.

The closest memory she had where someone had looked at her in this way was the first time she met Orochimaru. He had looked at her like she was worth something, something different than what the traffickers he’d saved her from had valued her as.

But even Orochimaru’s eyes had glazed over eventually. He’d promised her at their first meeting that no one would ever use her again, but he lied, and his teeth had been just as sharp as all the others.

Sakura’s gaze lingered with her, long after both she and her sensei had gone. Karin didn’t comprehend what it meant, and nothing good ever came of things she didn’t understand. Rationally, she would likely never see the woman again, so it shouldn’t even matter. But her ego was too starved for any sign of appreciation that she couldn’t let the moment go.

Hours later, she had at least figured out why the pink-haired ninja was so familiar.

Their meeting on the bridge was not the first time they had come face-to-face, though neither of them had known each other that time. It had been right after Sasuke had confronted Deidara for the location of his brother. Konoha had gotten wind of his movement and sent an eight-man cell after him. Karin, being the sensory ninja, was the one who had to constantly survey the area for the presence of the Leaf ninja and their accompanying ninken.

She’d been out gathering supplies when she’d felt the shiver of recognition tremble through her entire body. A woman brushed past her, flanked by a ninken. Though wearing a nondescript tan cloak, her red hitai-ate held the mark of the Leaf. She had pink hair and green eyes and an organized flow to her chakra which coalesced into a larger storage pool between her eyebrows.

_Sakura_.

She’d been close enough to touch. Their clothes _had_ touched. And the second time they met, Sakura had no qualms laying her bare hands on Karin’s body—not to take—but to heal.

Two times wasn’t enough to make a pattern, but there were similarities in the instances that Karin couldn’t ignore. What the similarities indicated though...that was still unknown.

Karin took off her glasses and rubbed at her face, which had become warm and tingly at some point.

All of this was probably just part of the interrogation act. Sakura was probably a plant. There was no reason for her to be so decent, other than to try and gain her trust. Torture was always an option, but it was usually more resource intensive and time-consuming. It would be easier for everyone if she just confessed all of her knowledge.

Well, Karin wasn’t going to lie down and take more orders. She was a free agent, she was her own team, she always had been, and she always would be. Konoha would have to offer her more than just a pretty girl with soft hands if they wanted her allegiance. If there was one thing Karin had learned over and over again, it was to trust no one.

But now, it was different. What they needed from her was something she had the power to keep from them, and she intended to use that bargaining chip to her advantage.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is all just the InoSaku backstory (which I didn't realize how much I needed to write, since it ended up being longer than I expected!). We will be back to our regularly scheduled Karin/Sakura next week. Tl;dr of this chapter in the end notes.

It wasn’t about Sasuke. It had never been about Sasuke.

To think that he was the crux of all of this was ludicrous, but she understood how most people saw the situation. To anyone looking at a surface level, she was crazy about him, and always had been. Even the people closest to her, Naruto, Kakashi, didn’t know the depth of the wound behind the scab. Hell, there were even some points where she got lost in her own demonstrations. Sometimes she truly thought she did have feelings for him in that way.

But even if she did have some kind of real interest in him at one point, Sasuke was never the beginning. Everything always started with the fading of summer into fall, the scent of gardenias, and a sleek red ribbon.

Ino was Sakura’s first love, and how couldn’t she be? How could she not fall in love with someone as confident as a blooming rose? Sakura had been thinking that maybe she just wasn’t cut out to be a kunoichi, when Ino came along and pulled the potential right out of her until she was inside-out and the rest of the world was backwards.

From the day they met to the day they entered the academy, there wasn’t a twenty-four hour period they went without seeing each other.

Sometimes they would go to Ino’s family flower shop, and her parents would let them smell all the flowers. If they were lucky, Ino’s mother would let them make some of the arrangements. There was a large catalog of bouquets that listed every flower needed, where to place each blossom and bud, and which vase or twine would complement the bundle best. Sakura could have spent hours flipping through that book, thumbing through each design and imagining what it would be like to receive a bunch of flowers from a devoted suitor.

If they were really lucky, they would come away from the shop with a flower or two that was “not presentable” for one reason or another.

Other times she and Ino would traipse through the forest, picking dandelions and pretending they were lilies or daisies or carnations. They made a little house out of mud and sticks and decorated it with shells and empty glass bottles and acorns. They took turns pretending to be the husband and wife, dad and mom, baby and older sister. They’d get so caught up that it’d be dark before they realized, and someone would come to get them—be it Sakura’s parents or Ino’s parents or sometimes Shikamaru or Chouji.

They played kick the can in the park with the other kids. Freeze tag. King of the kill, hopscotch, kickball. They were always on the same team, no matter what. They pushed each other on the swings and raced each other down the slides. They were a duo, a pair, and for a while it seemed like nothing could change that.

Things started to change once they started the academy, but it was so slowly that neither of them noticed until everything came apart in a devastating cataclysm.

To Sakura, at least, everything seemed to be on the rise. Bullies didn’t pick on her anymore. Her teachers often praised her in class for the high marks she received. Her hair had grown out a little, and she felt cuter and more at ease in her body.

One day after class, she and Ino were in the forest practicing throwing shuriken at trees and gossiping about the regulars at the flower shop. Fall was fading into winter now, and the smell of dead leaves and earth floated through the wind. The sun would set sooner each day, and each day they had less time to spend together.

Ino had seemed distracted, she couldn’t keep her eyes on the targets and her aim was off. She was usually a better shot than Sakura, so it was obvious that something was on her mind. When asked about it, Ino just shrugged it off, giving a non-answer as her reply. It wasn’t until she missed all of her shots that she broke.

“It’s just...your ribbon is crooked. I have to fix it,” she huffed, turning her fierce light-blue eyes to stare at Sakura.

Sakura was confused. Ino wasn’t someone to beat around the bush. On top of that, this ribbon had been hers originally! She had been the one to tie it through Sakura’s hair. Surely if it were crooked she wouldn’t have had a problem pointing it out and readjusting it earlier…

Before Sakura could even say anything, Ino was just a heartbeat away from her, reaching out both of her hands for the bow. Her eyes were so dead set on the knot holding it together, it seemed like she was watching to make sure it didn’t spontaneously burst into flames. Though, her gaze was so intense, Sakura wasn’t sure if maybe this was some type of fire-jutsu that Ino was about to prank her with.

She grabbed both ends of the bow, tightening it around Sakura’s head, this without warning, her hands slipped away to grasp the back of Sakura’s head. Squeezing her eyes shut, she wrenched the pink-haired girl forward and kissed her hard on the forehead.

This wasn’t…

_This wasn’t..._

She pulled back, her fingers still twined with Sakura’s hair, and opened her eyes. Her eyebrows were furrowed, her mouth was set in a frown. She seemed like she was waiting for some kind of opposition and daring Sakura to reject her or to pretend that this was just an act of friendship.

But it only took her about half a second to see the ‘ _at last_ ’ message that filtered through Sakura’s blushing face.

The next kiss was unmistakably intended to be shared between something other than simple friends. Ino pressed their lips together and held them there for two seconds.

Sakura instinctively tried to bring her hands to cover her burning face, only to be blocked by Ino’s face. She clasped her hands around the blonde’s jaw, holding her there, both of them just glued together and not breathing. The longer they stayed like that, the longer Sakura didn’t want to let go. Her heart ached, and her lungs burned with the need to breathe, but she was too greedy to give up this moment.

_Ino was pretty, and smart, and good at ninjutsu and taijutsu. Ino defended her from bullies. Ino put flowers in her hair and in her bookbag when she thought no one was looking. Ino stole cherry tomatoes from her mother’s garden because they were Sakura’s favorite. Ino’s favorite flower was the Cosmos because it was also called the ‘autumn cherry blossom.’_

_And she liked Sakura!_

_She liked Sakura back!_

By the time the vacuum seal between them released, Sakura was so dizzy that she had to sit down on the ground. Ino joined her but didn’t say anything. They walked back to the village in silence, holding hands, and no one noticed because they were girls and they were friends and it was overlooked.

But Ino had started it, and Sakura _knew_ , even if neither of them said it. Or at least, that was what she thought that night. Be it her own insecurities, the rumors of her classmates, or something else entirely, the lack of a spoken agreement would eventually get under her skin to the point where even looking at Ino was unbearable.

After that night, nothing about their usual routine was interrupted. Only now, kisses were sometimes added. Randomly enough that there was no discernible pattern. Often enough to know that it meant _something_.

It wasn’t that Sakura wanted to tell everyone she had a girlfriend. Okay, well, maybe that was a part of it, but mostly she just wanted the acknowledgment from Ino to confirm that’s what they were. Every time the question was on her lips, her face turned red and her ears started buzzing and she’d laugh nervously and swallow down her voice.

The other kids were becoming interested in others too. They shared secrets and spread haphazard guesses about who liked who and about what ‘liking someone’ even entailed. A lot of the girls at the academy had obvious crushes on Uchiha Sasuke. He was quiet and usually sat in the back of the class, and Sakura could agree that he was objectively cute. But when the other girls laughed and joked with Ino about her asking him out, Sakura felt like a flaming rope was tied around her middle, pulling tighter and tighter each time Ino didn’t deny the feelings they assumed she had.

_But Ino liked her! And Ino kissed her! Not him!_

So why did she never tell them to buzz off? Why did she not once make the case that she had no interest in Sasuke? Especially when Sakura was right there next to her, faking a smile and forcing herself to laugh along with everyone else. Couldn’t she tell that Sakura was dying inside? Didn’t she understand her insides felt so crushed up that she couldn’t breathe?

Sakura stopped kissing Ino after class. She flinched and turned away whenever Ino tried to kiss her. She made excuses and stopped hanging out with Ino, even to the point of avoiding her at the academy. Distancing herself from her best friend maybe the bullying come back, louder and more aggressive this time.

Sakura was ugly. Sakura had a huge forehead. Sakura was stuck up and an untalented know-it-all with dirty, lazy, civilian parents. No one could ever like her. If someone ever asked her out, it would only be as a joke.

_Then, did Ino…?_

She couldn’t ask. She only had one small scrap of self-worth left, and she would lose it completely if that were the truth. So she stayed away, and when they said that she liked Sasuke too, she didn’t correct them. When she overhead Ino telling some of the girls that she “didn’t want to hear about Sakura’s pitiful crush on Sasuke-kun,’ that was the official end. The rope cut clean through her middle, and she cried for days and days and days.

Of course, eventually, she just got mad. Inner Sakura was born, and she was _pissed_. How dare Ino just use her like some kind of practice dummy? How dare she just toss her aside for some dumb moody kid who happened to also be really smart and good at ninjutsu and taijutsu and... _Damn it_! Why hadn’t she even bothered to tell her? If they’d ever been friends, why would she have let her hurt this much?

So, Sakura leaned into the chatter that she liked Sasuke. She brought him bento, she sharpened his pencils for him, she asked him if he wanted to go to the playground with her after class. It didn’t really matter that he always rejected her because she wasn’t after his approval. It was worth it just to see the livid scowl festering on Ino’s face.

For her final killing blow, she told Ino that they couldn’t be friends anymore. Not only that, but that Sakura wanted to have nothing to do with her. They were rivals for Sasuke’s love now, and nothing more. She’d never forget the look on Ino’s face when she said that.

It would be years until she would finally figure out what the hell had happened.

The chuunin exams came and went. They fought it out, and things were better afterwards, but they still had never talked about it. Sakura didn’t expect closure. She figured it was something that would just stay buried between them, after all, they could now be civil around each other without Sakura feeling like her veins were full of acid.

But then, one day, after Sasuke had left and the team that had gone to retrieve him had failed, Ino had interrupted Sakura in the middle of her training to beg her to ask Tsunade to take her on as an apprentice as well.

Sakura stared dubiously at the fish in the pond that she had just revived.

“Since when do you want to learn medical ninjutsu…?”

She wasn’t sure how it would go if both of them were Tsunade’s apprentices. They hadn’t spent that much time together since they were kids, and Sakura could only imagine that this would inevitably have them at each other’s throats…in one way or another.

“That last mission...” Both of them knew what Ino was referring to, “Chouji and Shikamaru were both there, giving it their all, and...where was I? We’re supposed to be a team, but Chouji got so hurt...I’d been thinking about this for a little while, but now I’m sure. I’m just not good enough.”

Sakura’s heart sank. She’d had similar misgivings with herself after Naruto and Sasuke had progressed so quickly. Both had figuratively left her behind with their advancement in skill, and now, both had literally left her behind. She was the only remaining member of Team 7 in the village. “Ino...”

“I hate to admit this, but I was even jealous of you. Even though you’ve just started training, already I see the difference. People depend on you. They trust you to have their back. That’s why...that’s why I want to be a medical ninja too.”

Sakura could not say no to that line of reasoning. She got no sleep that night, trying to reassure herself that everything would be okay. That they had grown up, and everything that had happened between them was in the past, as good as forgotten. As unrealistic as it seemed, maybe they could just start over.

The next day at her lesson with Tsunade, Sakura kept trying to to bring up Ino’s request. Every time the kunoichi’s name came near the tip of her tongue, she changed the subject. Anxiety or lack of sleep made her clumsy. She accidentally killed two fish and, after reviving the third, the door to the room burst open, startling both her and her mentor.

“Who’s there?” barked Tsunade.

Ino stepped through the door, her footsteps silent as she made her way across the stone. When she came into Tsunade’s view, she bowed deeply.

“Tsunade-sama, please make me your apprentice!”

Sakura stood back and watched as Ino and Tsunade hashed out the details. She didn’t understand why Ino hadn’t waited for her to ask Tsunade on her behalf. It had only been one day—not even! A mess of confused feelings whirled around her chest, and she took a break from practicing her revival technique to read some scrolls.

Actually, she just pretended to read the scrolls. The words all jumbled into unintelligible strokes of ink as Ino took her place learning from Tsunade how to focus her chakra into the mystical palm aura.

One mission was all it took for Ino to delve into medical ninjutsu? Was she always this fickle? Sakura had been with her team for over a year, and in that year, Naruto went from barely being able to produce a shadow clone to stopping the one-tailed beast from destroying Konoha! And Sasuke had always been talented, and graduating from the academy hadn’t changed his trajectory any. He’d mastered Chidori and he could control the curse mark that Orochimaru had put on him! There were a lot of reasons that Sakura had to feel inadequate compared to her teammates, but Ino…!

Sure, Ino’s teammates specialized in the secret techniques of their clan, but Ino did too! She used the Mind Transfer jutsu on Sakura back during the chuunin exams. So what exactly made her feel so far behind, other than being left out of one measly mission?

She couldn’t be serious about this. It had to be some kind of joke or passing whim. She’d moved on from Sakura to Sasuke, and now she had grown tired of learning her clan’s ninjutsu so she thought she’d just give medical ninjutsu a shot. As if people didn’t dedicate their lives to training in this art! As if—as if all of this was meaningless to her!

By the time their lessons were over and Tsunade took her leave, Inner Sakura was foaming at the mouth.

Ino took a seat at the chair Tsunade had been watching them from, yawning and stretching in an exaggerated way.

“Oh, are you tired, Ino-pig? Maybe you’re just not cut out for this kind of hard work. If you don’t like it, you should just quit now.” Sakura’s tone was venomous. She put down the scroll she had been staring at for the past half hour and rolled it away. Her hands clenched into tight fists, shaking. She didn’t want to wreck anything, but she felt mad enough to bring the whole room down.

Ino looked at her with surprise for about two seconds before her expression turned indignant. She rolled her eyes as if dealing with a bratty academy child.

“Did reading those scrolls give you a headache and make you cranky?” Ino mocked. Sarcasm emanated from her like poisonous mist. “If _you_ don’t like it, _you_ can quit.”

Sakura heard an actual snapping sound as her whole body felt engulfed in flames. She jumped to her feet and had Ino in the air by the fabric on her collar in the blink of an eye.

“Say that again, I dare you, pig.”

Ino’s face was frozen, but there was no fear there. Her expression was far from blank, and what Sakura saw there…

She pulled Ino toward her, smashing their faces together. Sakura could feel her lips pressing against her teeth so hard that she knew the skin would be broken there. That was her last rational thought before they were a hurricane of hands and teeth and hair and tongues. It was a miracle that the chair under them didn’t collapse as they clawed at one another, creating a storm of hate and love and resentment and lust and hormones and stupidity.

So, they didn’t end up talking about it that day either—not with words anyway—and Sakura went home with the taste of blood in her mouth and a feeling of freedom lifting her shoulders high in a way she hadn’t since she’d cut off her long hair.

Sakura was the one who started it. Because of that, she felt some responsibility to make sure it didn’t end up like last time. It took her two more “incidents” to work up the nerve to say anything.

“Ino, wait.”

The blonde immediately shrank back, her face hardening into a defensive scowl. Sakura already knew what was past this hastily erected barrier, so it didn’t concern her.

“Before we...you know...”

Here, Ino relaxed, reassured that she wasn’t suddenly being rejected.

“I just don’t want this to turn out like before, you know, like at the academy. When you ditched me for Sasuke.” She swore she hadn’t meant to say that last part, but it was out there now, her bitterness fully on display between them.

Ino just looked confused and eventually indignant.

“ _I_ ditched _you_ for Sasuke? Are you fucking kidding me?” Ino’s voice was piercing. She actually had to get up and back away, burning a rut in the ground with her pacing just to keep herself from fully screaming. “You know, for someone with such a huge forehead, you’d think you’d have some kind of brain behind it.”

A cold feeling sunk into Sakura’s stomach, and she didn’t want to continue this conversation because she somehow already knew, and she didn’t want it to be true. It couldn’t possibly be true! She didn’t want to know that the rift between them that started all those years ago was because of a stupid misunderstanding that could have easily been resolved if they’d just talked about it even once…

She didn’t want to know that she really was that idiotic.

“I—” Sakura didn’t know what to say to put an end to this.

“No, you know what? Go ahead. Enlighten me on how you think it’s my fault that you started ignoring me, throwing yourself at Sasuke, and then literally told me to my fucking face that we couldn’t be friends and _you wanted nothing to do with me_! Because of Sasuke! Because I thought it was pretty fucking clear!”

The muscles in Sakura’s throat trembled, which was evident as she choked on her words. “But you...you were the one who kept telling all those girls...how cute he was...and...”

“So what?” Ino’s eyes were sparking with rage. “He was hot. Anyone who’s not blind can see that, but what the hell does that matter? He’s still hot, but now he’s a fucking rogue ninja. They’re completely separate things. And what, just because I like one person means I have to think everyone else is fucking hideous? Don’t tell me you don’t know Sasuke is good looking because that’s just bullshit.”

Sakura felt the need to defend herself, even if she knew she was wrong. Even if she was currently berating herself in her own head. Maybe subconsciously Ino’s anger seemed like a fitting punishment.

“You were ashamed of me! You kept it a secret! You were just using me!”

Ino’s eyes locked to Sakura’s. She ceased her pacing and very deliberately took three steps to close the distance between them. The next time she spoke, her voice started out bone-chillingly low.

“A secret? When we were holding hands around the village and to class? When we always chose each other for partners for every assignment? When I brought you flowers and stood up to your bullies, even losing some of my own friends in the process? When I had Chouji and Shikamaru attempt to cover for me at clan events so I could hang out with you? How much more obvious should I have been, Sakura?” Her face was red, strained from yelling. Sakura could feel her breath hot across her face.

Ino didn’t even blink. She continued on, relentless.

“What, did you expect me to declare my eternal love for you in front of the class? Did you want me to bend you over the desk and put my hands up your skirt? Because I don’t see how it could have been more obvious without being obscene.”

Sakura’s cheeks were moist from the spit that was flying out of Ino’s mouth and from the tears that were leaking from her eyes.

“I thought….”

Finally, Ino looked away and backed off. The temperature in the room dropped back to a normal level.

“God, your self-esteem was even shittier than I thought...”

Sakura was familiar with just standing around and crying, and it frustrated her that she fell back to this habit so easily. She was a medical ninja in training now! She could make it through this.

Gritting her teeth and squaring her shoulders, she faced Ino. Tears were still flowing freely, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t do this. She clenched her hands into fists and bowed slightly.

“I’m...sorry...”

Her words were blanketed by a long sigh from Ino.

“I’m sorry too.”

For all the barbed words and sharp looks they had tossed at each other over the years, the hug they shared was refreshingly soft and sincere. Sakura felt her own body wilt into the embrace. Years upon years upon years of tension sloughed away, melting the skin from her bones, stripping away every callus between them until they were just two kunoichi who had grown apart and lost touch.

When Sakura pulled away and took a deep breath, the air burned her lungs. Everything old had been rubbed raw, but clean. This was their chance for a fresh start, and judging by the sobbing laughter coming from Ino, the feeling was mutual.

Three months later and Ino managed to resuscitate the octopus. Tsunade offered her the opportunity to become a full-time medical ninjutsu apprentice, but Ino denied it. Tsunade-sama didn’t seem at all surprised, and Sakura realized that she didn’t feel particularly shocked either.

Later, she and Ino were talking about nothing on the roof of the hospital. Tomorrow, Sakura would be attending lessons by herself, which made her insides feel like they had been put together slightly crooked. It was hard to imagine that three months ago, she hadn’t wanted to share her learning space with the Yamanaka.

“What made you start learning medical ninjutsu?” Ino asked suddenly.

 _The same reason as you_ , Sakura wanted to say. She held back, and watched the village below them. A stream of kids burst from the doors of the academy, rushing home now that the day was over. A cat stalked lazily across a rain gutter, pawing at debris here and there. A lone ANBU whisked across rooftops, finally disappearing into a cluster of buildings near the Forest of Death. She supposed she could be more open with her answer than that.

“I wanted to create a place where I belong. Among my teammates, I was falling behind. Naruto kept his promise to me to bring back Sasuke, and he got beat up on my behalf. Both of them were so much stronger...on a different level. I was tired of just staring at their backs, hoping to catch up. I’m part of Team 7 too, and I wanted to walk side-by-side with them. I promised myself that next time, I would.”

Ino turned her gaze to the horizon. The wind carried wisps of her hair across her face. She’d told Sakura that she planned on growing it out again.

Since the explosive fight between them during Ino’s first week of training, they had been able to talk again, heart-to-heart, without any hidden hurt feelings or facades of politeness. They’d just decided to start everything over again, as if they’d just met. And, as they spent more time together for their training, it became apparent just how far they’d grown apart. In the three years since graduating the academy, so much had changed for both of them that their currents selves were essentially strangers to each other.

So it had been nice, to tie up the past and cultivate a new friendship. Of course, the teasing didn’t really stop because they were so used to it by now, but it wasn’t personal. If anything, it was just a joke of how they both used to be.

The past few months really had been nice. Building a friendship had been nice. When Ino had revived that octopus, Sakura had truly been happy for her. She really would miss Ino now that they wouldn’t be training together anymore. But Ino knew what was best for her, and Sakura could see it too. In a way, it was reflective of their own relationship. It hadn’t worked one way, but what they had now was strong. It was where they both belonged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tl;dr  
> Sakura and Ino grew up together and had crushes on each other but were young and dumb and because of miscommunications they ruined their budding relationship and became enemies (each trying to hurt each other by using Sasuke). After the chuunin exams, Ino briefly trains with Sakura to learn medical ninjutsu, and they figure out what happened all those years ago was just a series of misunderstandings, and they forgive each other and become best friends.
> 
> Btw a lot of this is based off of episode 406 of Shippuden!


	5. Chapter 5

Karin wasn’t sure what to make of Konoha’s holding cells. The only other cells she’d seen in her life were Orochimaru’s, and those had been far _far_ worse. Nothing about the Leaf Village or its practices or its people made any sense. Everything was too warm, too welcoming, too inviting. That jinchuuriki brat really was a personification of this place, and it didn’t make any sense.

She caught herself wondering over and over how Konoha could end up being one of the big five villages, when instead of having cold and calculating tools for ninja, they had...the power of friendship or something equally ridiculous.

She was sure she had died on that bridge. She was dead, and Sasuke had killed her, and this was all a very strange part of the afterlife. She couldn’t take it seriously, and she felt like she had nothing to lose, so she demanded ridiculous things from her captors. Katsudon, extra blankets, a picture of Sasuke. The Interrogation Force gave it all to her, hoping to encourage her to spill some important secrets. She really doubted she knew that much more information that would be useful to them.

They seemed to be under the impression that Sasuke had tried to kill her because she was important, that her capture would be a liability. She knew that Sasuke had tried to kill her because she was of no use to him.

_Never mind that she had saved his life minutes earlier! Nevermind that he couldn’t have taken down Danzou without her to heal his sorry ass!_

It was also therapeutic, venting to the Leaf ninja. And they had to listen to her, just in case she slipped up and said something of value. Some of them even felt sorry for her, she could tell. And while that was nice and all, she knew she couldn’t trust them, and she didn’t want to be imprisoned for an indefinite amount of time.

With her emotional outbursts and bizarre demands, the Force loosened up on their surveillance of her. It might have also been because of the ramping up action of Madara that drew extra personnel away from every division, even the Interrogation and Torture Force. Regardless, it wasn’t too long before Karin was able to use the lockpick built into her glasses to escape her cell. She stepped out into the cool night air and stretched into full freedom.

_No more Konoha, no more Team Taka…_

But then a sensation like pain from a pinched nerve shot all the way through her body, and she whipped her head in the direction of the disturbance. She could feel his presence, all of their presences actually—Sasuke, Orochimaru, Juugo, Suigetsu, and others.

_What were the odds? Had he come for her?_

It wasn’t really practical to be all on her own right now, not with the way things were going. And Sasuke wasn’t so bad. Sure, he treated her like shit, but there was a line that he never crossed...other than that time he tried to kill her. She knew she was just trying to rationalize things, and by the time she crept up on the group, she was mad at herself.

She didn’t want to be stuck with these people again, so why did her feet bring her straight here? At least maybe she could make Sasuke feel a little bad for what he did to her. Well, none of it really mattered, she guessed. This was her life, inevitably stuck with people she didn’t like.

Still fired up, she struck out at the closest person from the group, secretly hoping it would be Sasuke though due to her sensory perception she knew it wasn’t. Of course it was Suigetsu. But he was a bastard too, and he could turn into water, so she knew her blows wouldn’t really affect him. Maybe Sasuke would take a hint though.

If he regretted anything, or felt any fear at her demonstration of power, he showed none of it. He gave her an apology that was so bland that it actually halted her in her tracks.

_Was that really the best he could muster?_

Orochimaru misinterpreted her stillness. “I see you still have a weakness for Sasuke, Karin.”

Karin whirled on her former master, incensed. “Listen up, Orochimaru-sama. Sasuke had the nerve to stab me and—”

“What a coincidence,” Orochimaru interrupted, his voice as slimy and self-satisfied as ever, “Me too.”

_And it looked like he failed to keep either of us dead_ , Karin thought, but she didn’t say it. Orochimaru actually had died, and she didn’t know why he was all smiley about it. Frankly, she didn’t want to know. There were a lot of things about Orochimaru that were better off left undiscovered.

“But anyway, I’m helping him now, and you should too. This is good timing,” he hissed.

Finally she recognized the other figures behind Team Taka. Now that she was closer, she could recognize that their chakra was off—the result of a reanimation jutsu, probably courtesy of Orochimaru. How Orochimaru had come back to life—well, maybe that was another thing she didn’t need to know. But when she looked at the four figures closer, she recognized them as the faces of the stone statue on which they were all currently standing. The first four Hokage.

And if Orochimaru had come back from the dead to resurrect the first four Hokage from a village he had forsaken long ago, and even Sasuke was somehow going along with this, then the situation had to be more dire than she realized.

“Huh?” She was confused, but the reality of her lack of options was settling in fast. “I guess I have no choice...”

~~

Before the war, she had never really had any opportunities. During the war, she acted just like the tool she had trained her whole life to be, though in the end she didn’t even fulfill her purpose. Kabuto was the one to bring Sasuke back from the brink of death—not her. Maybe Sasuke had been right to kill her, maybe she wasn’t useful to him. Or maybe, she just belonged somewhere else.

She hung onto that last thought after the war was over, and she had no idea where to go or what to do. She sure as hell wasn’t going to return to working with Orochimaru like Juugo and Suigetsu seemed content to do. Sasuke was in custody in Konoha, voluntarily of course, and it looked like he was planning to play happy family and rejoin the village he had spent so long trying to destroy. As usual, his motivations didn’t make a whole lot of sense to her, but she was past the point in her life where she wanted to figure out what other people were doing with their lives. She needed to focus on what she was doing with her own life.

So, she traveled. She stayed away from Konoha because she didn’t want to run into Sasuke, and she tried to stay away from any of Orochimaru’s hideouts, though he had so many all over the place. Definitely anywhere near Kusagakure was out of the question. She discovered that Wind Country was a good place for her to explore. The large swatches of desert between towns made some places really remote and under-populated. She never felt suffocated or watched, even drifting around as she did.

The only problem was money, though bigger cities usually had plenty of temporary work or odd jobs that she could pick up. That was how she ended up in Suna. Their hospital was expanding and in need of more medical ninjas. If there was one thing Karin knew without a shadow of a doubt that she could do, it was heal people.

To her surprise, her interview didn’t go as easily as they usually went. The employee who was questioning her seemed very concerned about the sanity of patients biting into her flesh. She even agreed to swab down her skin with rubbing alcohol after each patient, and still the interviewer didn’t seem impressed. Well, Suna was a large village, and they weren’t by any means in the middle of a crisis. There were probably plenty of qualified applicants to serve the number of patients in need of care.

Karin left the interview feeling a mixture of pissed off and glum. She could try and get work in a research lab, but it was usually harder to get something temporary in that field. Hell, maybe the hospital needed human test subjects for clinical trials…

She was about to turn around and walk back to the hospital when she felt the familiar jolt of energy that signaled she recognized a nearby chakra signal. Almost annoyed, she pushed her glasses up her nose and looked around, putting forth more concentration into her sensory perception. Whoever it was, it wasn’t someone as immediately recognizable as Orochimaru or a member of Team Taka, and for that, Karin was grateful. She turned the pattern around in her mind, somewhat curious to the identity of this person. For her reaction to have been that strong, she would have had to have interacted with them quite a bit…

When she couldn’t figure out how she knew this person, she stopped in her tracks in the middle of the street, frustrated. All the architecture in Suna was curvy, so it wasn’t practical to try and get a higher vantage point from one of the domed roofs. Instead, she closed her eyes and tried to sense where it was coming from, and then, she followed it. She really had no idea who it could be, as she hadn’t made that many connections in the year or two since the war ended.

_Maybe that innkeeper I stiffed in Port City?_

Her sleuthing brought her to a ramen shop about two blocks north of the hospital. The pinging inside her was going crazy, as if this person was actively beckoning her forward. She tiptoed closer, holding her breath, confused at how the signal could be so strong when she still didn’t recognize the pattern of chakra.

She entered the shop and felt like she had just woken up from a nightmare where she was falling. The person’s back was to her, seated at the counter with a friend, her pink hair unmistakable.

Haruno Sakura, the kunoichi who had saved her life all those years ago. Suddenly, it made sense why her sensory perception would be so attuned to this person. She just stood there, staring, her mind gasping for thought. She didn’t even get to the point of wondering if she should go over and say hi or if Sakura would even remember her. The shopkeeper noticed her blank expression and waved her over, indicating a free seat next to the pink-haired shinobi, who turned to look at the new customer.

Karin felt her face burning, probably red as her hair, as Sakura’s eyes locked on hers.

“Karin?”

“Ah—uh, y-yeah, haha, i-it’s me. Hey, um, S-Sakura-aha-uh, uhhh...” As gracefully as a toddler taking her first steps, Karin stumbled over to the counter and took a seat. Her glasses were completely fogged over by the time she sat down, and she busied herself with wiping them off on the collar of her shirt.

She didn’t know why she felt so embarrassed all of the sudden. It wasn’t like Sakura had forgotten her, which would have been more humiliating. Karin fumbled her glasses back on and took in Sakura’s appearance. The last time Karin had seen her, she’d been pretty, but now—

Her bangs had grown out, and though her hair was still only to her chin, it was all one length now. She had a purple jewel mark on her forehead, behind which Karin could sense an enormous reservoir of chakra. Her green eyes sparkled with such dazzling confidence that Karin had to look away. Of course, as she looked down, she noticed how well-defined the muscles in Sakura’s arms were.

The waiter brought over a glass of water, and she gulped it down before he had a chance to walk away. Sakura’s expression faded into one of concern, and Karin fought to get a hold of herself. She had never been one to deny her attractions to herself, but if she didn’t cut it out, she was going to make a scene, and she didn’t want that.

_But damn! Sakura was—!_

The blonde kunoichi that was with accompanying Sakura piped up. “Who’s your friend?”

“Oh, right,” Sakura said, turning back to her friend, “Ino, this is Karin. Karin, Ino.”

Karin looked behind Sakura at Ino and her jaw almost dropped. _What the hell?! Sakura, Ino, and Sasuke all came from Konoha?! Damn, the Leaf Village really knew how to make beautiful shinobi._

A part of her also felt the tiniest pang of jealousy. Ino had smooth long blonde hair that cascaded over her shoulders and down her back in silky cream waves. Side bangs covered half of her face, the other half being impeccably painted with makeup. Her form fitting purple clothes were close-cropped and revealing just enough to elicit curiosity. Anyone who had any attraction whatsoever to women would be instantly smitten by Ino. Clearly Sakura was either on a date or had no interest in women, and either way, Karin felt her frantically beating heart begin to sink.

“Karin? You mean _that_ Karin?” Ino asked, her perfectly glossy lips rounding in surprise.

“Mhmm,” Sakura confirmed, “She used to work with Sasuke, before the war.”

Sakura seemed entirely in control of herself, which made Karin all the more frustrated. She heightened her sensory perception in order to draw in others’ emotions from around her because obviously everyone in the immediate vicinity was more calm. Taking a few minutes to feed off the other patrons’ composures, Karin was able to gradually float back down to earth.

When the waiter came back over, Karin was able to place an order without gagging on her tongue. Granted, she just read the first item that was listed on the menu, but it was a small victory in her opinion.

“Wow. So what are you doing in Suna?” Ino asked, directing her question to Karin.

Karin looked from one Leaf kunoichi to the other and swallowed. “Ah, y’know. I was just...looking for work.”

Sakura was looking at her with an interest that was making her feel like she was melting. Her clothes were uncomfortably damp against her skin. The waiter brought over a dish of gyoza that she had apparently ordered— _what the hell, she didn’t even like gyoza_ —and the steam from the pan-fried dumplings made her face feel sticky.

“Oh!” Sakura’s face lit up, “You must have seen the ads placed for the new hospital wing! We’re expecting to hire a lot of new employees. Is that right?”

“Uh….uh...uh-huh...” She broke apart her chopsticks and popped one of the gyoza in her mouth. Terrible, but at least it gave her something to do and a reason for her responses to be unreasonably slow.

Sakura smiled at her. Even Ino looked pretty damn content.

“What luck! Well, don’t worry. We can get you a job for sure. After all, we’re leading the project.”

Karin spit the gyoza out with such a force that her glasses flew off her face. She grabbed the glass of water that the waiter had refilled and downed it, then snatched her paper napkin and dabbed at her face. She couldn’t see the expression of Sakura’s face too well without her glasses, but she could feel the spike of chakra that indicated some surprise at her outburst.

She fished her glasses out of a dish of soy sauce and wiped them off with her napkin.

“Ahaha...what a small world...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're finally moving into the Blank Period / Sakura Hiden part of this fic. Note that I didn't actually read Sakura Hiden, I just read a summary of it and was like...I can work with this (take out all the pining over Sasuke -_-). Anyway, the Blank Period had such awesome character designs! You see them in the very end of Shippuden and also Naruto: The Last movie, and then that's it. It's so unfair because Blank Period everyone looks awesome!


	6. Chapter 6

_What luck indeed._

Somehow there was a perfect job that existed as if it was made for her, and Sakura pretty much guaranteed that it was hers. At first, the pink-haired woman had assumed that Karin would want a position as a healer, but Karin had declined. Remembering how poorly her interview had gone only hours earlier, she wasn’t sure she was cut out for that kind of work. She ended up telling Sakura that she “didn’t feel ready to take on that kind of responsibility at the moment,” which she felt was an unbelievable excuse given her skin was permanently marked with all the responsibilities she’d dealt with over the years.

Sakura didn’t press. There was a flicker of understanding in her eyes, and then Ino—who was annoyingly always at Sakura’s side—rattled off tons of other open positions that Karin might want.

Karin came to learn that the reason for the sudden expansion of Suna’s hospital was because of a similar successful program that had originated in Konoha. What had started out as a mental health clinic for children had morphed into a much larger scale overhaul of the Leaf Village’s overall mental health system, which proved extremely necessary after the war.

Out of the other major hidden villages, Suna had the closest ties to Konoha, and the success of the program did not go unnoticed. Several months after the completion of the project, the new structure was still in place and still turning positive results. The Kazekage had personally contacted Tsunade to propose a similar project in the Sand Village, and after approval from the Hokage—who apparently was now Hatake Kakashi, the man who’d carried Karin to Konoha on his back—the plans were set in motion.

So now Suna’s hospital was undergoing a complete overhaul, causing the need for a lot of new workers. Additionally, there were further plans to continue with similar programs in Iwagakure, Kumogakure, and Kirigakure. Implementation of these plans would be smoother with ninja already familiar with the project, so Sakura needed a core team of employees from all divisions that wouldn’t mind traveling between the nations to set up the programs and eventually to maintain standardization between the practices of each medical center.

It sounded ambitious and too good to be true, but the fact that Konoha had been a success and Suna was currently in progress indicated that maybe something like this was possible. Anyway, Karin felt it would be stupid of her to ignore a chance like this that had just fallen into her lap. So what if it didn’t work out? She’d been on the road for the better part of the past two years. If things went to shit, she knew how to make ends meet. And in the meantime, why not enjoy what seemed like the opportunity of a lifetime?

She chose a position as one of the lab staff. She had plenty of experience from working with Orochimaru, and Sakura was well aware. She also had a bunch of certifications that she had been forced to get when she had lived in Kusagakure, to make sure that their hospital wouldn’t be penalized if any international audits came about.

Over the next several days, the three met in one of the conference rooms of the hospital, ironing out the details and drawing up a contract. Strangely, Karin felt much more in control of herself during these meetings. Business was business, black and white, nothing to get all flustered over. But if she accidentally happened to come across Sakura in the hallway or while she was washing her hands in the bathroom or another casual setting like that, Karin’s face became noticeably hot.

She just hoped Sakura thought she had a skin condition or something.

As a member of the ‘rotating lab team’ she was expected to know all the employees in her unit, not only those in Suna, but from the other villages as well. She was given a roster with the names, photos, and job titles of the entire lab staff as well as the entire ‘rotating’ team. None of the information wasn’t already available to the public, so it wasn’t very valuable if lost, but it was helpful to learn everyone’s names and faces. Flipping through the pages, Karin was surprised to see that a number of medi-nin from Iwagakure and Kumogakure were already stationed in Suna.

The Rotation was divided into three groups, medical, laboratory, and psych. The supervisors of each division were all from Konoha, as that was where the program had originated. Sakura led the medical unit, Ino led the psych unit, and another ninja named Oyone led the laboratory unit. The overall leader for the entire rotating team was Shizune, though she was currently in Iwagakure, so Sakura was filling in. The supervisors of the rotating units would work in tandem with their local counterparts to keep each group up and running. This meant that Karin would have two supervisors, Oyone, who she would eventually travel to the other Hidden Villages with, and Sekka, a Sand nin who would be permanently stationed in Suna.

Other members of the rotating lab team that Karin would be working with were Mikoshi—a male Sand jounin, Ruka—a female jounin from Kirigakure, slated to arrive a few weeks after Karin’s start date, and Tsuchibachi—a chuunin from Iwagakure. Of course, there were plenty of other Sand ninja working in the lab unit, but they were those permanently stationed in Suna. Karin was more interested in getting to know the group that would essentially become her new team members.

The program also was affiliated with some nearby housing options, though Karin knew she could find cheaper yet shittier and considerably less safe lodging closer to the edge of town that bordered the Demon Desert. She figured that she could handle any petty thief that tried breaking and entering if it came to that. Ironically, as she was leaving her apartment for the hospital on her first day, she noticed someone from the rotating medical team lived in her apartment complex—Amai, a male jounin from Kumogakure. Karin was too nervous about making a good first impression to her fellow lab members to strike up a conversation with him, but she felt reassured that there was a familiar face in her building.

Since it was her first day, Karin reported to Sakura’s office in the main hospital building. There were, of course, more papers to be signed, photos to be taken, badges to be printed, and an informal orientation regarding Suna’s hospital policies. By the time all of the necessary items were taken care of, it was basically lunch time.

Karin collapsed into the chair across from Sakura’s desk, already exhausted. She had been too fidgety and indecisive to pack lunch in the morning, so she was hoping that the hospital’s cafeteria wasn’t terrible. Her stomach growled, and from behind her, she heard Sakura laughed as she reentered the room, carrying two wrapped bento boxes.

She came up to the desk and placed them both down.

“Since it’s your first day, I thought I would make you a bento. I hope you don’t mind.”

Karin looked at the bento closer to her, and pains of hunger streaked through her stomach, urging her to reach for it.

“Oh, you shouldn’t...o-on my behalf...go through the trouble...”

Blood was filling up behind her face. She took off her glasses and pretended to clean them off, just so Sakura wouldn’t notice if they fogged up.

“No, it’s really no problem! I hope you like it. I always want everyone to start off feeling welcome.”

Sakura sat down and began unwrapping her own lunch. Her tone was light as a breeze, and Karin would have tried to siphon some of the Leaf shinobi’s calm if it wasn’t for the fact that every aspect of the woman in front of her seemed to cause the opposite effect.

She reached for her own bento, not wanting to appear rude by refusing Sakura’s kind gesture. It didn’t matter what Sakura had made, it could be mashed garbage. Karin had already decided that she was going to eat every last bite of it so that Sakura would know she was thankful.

Sakura seemed to be anticipating her reaction. Karin unwrapped the box and opened the lid.

_Gyoza_.

Internally, Karin felt her stomach shrivel.

“You ordered it the other day, so I figured I couldn’t go wrong with that!” Sakura explained cheerily.

Karin...couldn’t tell her.

She picked up the chopsticks that had been thoughtfully included in the box, and held them poised over a dumpling. She swallowed, bracing herself.

“Itadakimasu.”

To her horror, Sakura didn’t look away as she took a bite of the gyoza. She already wasn’t a fan of this dish, and the taste that burst in her mouth didn’t help. Karin couldn’t imagine that this gyoza could be classified as palatable by even the most die-hard fan.

She managed to choke it down though. It helped that she could follow it up with a long swig of water from the re-usable bottle she’d brought with her.

“So, what do you think?” Sakura was literally on the edge of her seat.

Karin hid a wince with feigned laughter. “Delicious,” she lied.

Sakura sat back, exhaling with relief. “Ah, thank you. I was worried because Naruto...you remember him, right? He always says I’m hopeless when it comes to cooking!”

_Hopeless seemed like a generous descriptor._

Karin remembered Naruto, though she had only met him briefly. At the time, he had seemed kind of oblivious. If even he didn’t like this stuff, then Karin could be sure that it wasn’t just her dislike of gyoza making her sensitive to this meal.

“He just doesn’t appreciate healthy foods! I always substitute ingredients with the most nutritious options, and I even add some vitamin powders to the filling. They’re perfect for long days, especially double-shifts and stuff like that.”

Sakura seemed so thrilled that someone appreciated her cooking. Karin couldn’t take that away from her. She popped another dumpling into her mouth, smiling through the pain.

On one hand, she wanted to take her time with lunch so that she would have more time to talk to Sakura. On the other hand, she wanted to be done with the abhorrent gyoza as soon as possible. Realistically, the more time she spent in Sakura’s presence, the more time she had to embarrass herself anyway. Her best plan of action would be to scarf them down and get out of here as quick as possible.

Since her primary focus was on finishing her food, that left the direction of the conversation to Sakura.

“So, you mentioned before that you’ve been traveling since the war ended. Were you by yourself the whole time, or...maybe someone from Taka joined you?”

Beside the gyoza there was a tiny compartment of pickled radish which wasn’t horrible. She took a bite and savored the taste, allowing herself to slow her pace just a bit.

“Just me, thank God.”

Sakura appeared puzzled. “Oh...I thought you guys were friends...”

Karin considered her words. Her old observation of the Konoha shinobi principle that all teammates—maybe all ninja ever—were by default on friendly terms still appeared to ring true. Once again, she felt intrigued that a whole nation could believe in this kind of idea.

“We were together out of necessity, kind of.”

Sakura didn’t say anything, and Karin didn’t want to seem like she was being closed off, so she continued.

“Well, that Suigestsu guy, he was really annoying. I couldn’t stand him. Juugo was alright, I guess, but I wouldn’t consider him a friend. And Sasuke...”

She’d been head-over-heels for him when he’d asked her to join him. Even looking back, her memories of their actions at that time were tinted with a forgiving bias. Other than when he had told her that her skillset was useful to him and his mission, he hadn’t been particularly kind or respectful. Though, she had routinely invaded his personal space and pushed his boundaries, so she couldn’t say she had acted much better.

“Well, I thought Sasuke and I were...friends. But, y’know. You saw how that worked out.”

Her chest throbbed, not where the bolt of lightning had passed through, but where Sakura had rested her healing hands.

“Ah. I see...so you haven’t been in contact with any of them since? Sasuke just got out of prison last year, and he’s been traveling too.”

This was news to Karin, but the information didn’t have much effect on her one way or another. She tucked it away in the back of her brain between some other unimportant facts that she had learned today, the year that Suna’s hospital was first built and the name of its founding director.

“Eh, well, we don’t keep in regular contact. Occasionally I get a scroll from Juugo. If Suigetsu sends me anything, it’s to piss me off. Orochimaru sometimes tries to get me to work for him again, and I don’t know how many times I have to tell him no before he gives up. Haven’t heard from Kabuto at all. Or Sasuke.”

Sakura’s eyes slowly drifted down the length of her chopsticks to the compartment of rice in her bento. The color of her eyes had dulled from a vibrant spring to a misty forest.

“Wasn’t that lonely?”

_Hell no_ , Karin wanted to say. Instead she tried a more collected response of, “Uh, no, not really.”

This didn’t seem to be the answer that Sakura had expected to hear, but by the time Karin tried to backpedal through her thoughts and amend what she had said, Sakura had already moved on to another generic question. Karin really wanted this conversation to be more two-sided, but she didn’t know how to pose a question back without seeming nosy. She suffered through the rest of the gyoza and some more polite small talk before Ino burst in.

“Hakui’s having problems entering the correct pharmacy codes into the—oh hey, Karin. Is it finally your first day? Sorry if I interrupted your lunch!”

Karin, having finished most of her bento and not caring for the rest, closed her bento and stood up.

“Ah, it’s no problem. I was just about done anyway...”

She edged away from the desk, hoping Sakura wouldn’t insist that she eat any more.

Sakura stood up too, then stacked her bento on top of Karin’s and wrapped them both together.

“Ah, yeah. I meant to talk to Ameno-san about that earlier, but I guess I forgot,” she said, stashing the wrapped boxes under her desk, “Well, I just need to take Karin over to the lab, and then I’ll ask her right after.”

Ino shook her head. “I’ll take Karin to the lab. It’s on my way back anyway.”

Sakura looked from Ino to Karin and frowned. “Well...I just feel like I should since I’m taking care of all of Shizune’s paperwork while she’s gone...”

“All the more reason for me to take her. Don’t wanna fall behind now, do you?” There was a teasing tone in Ino’s voice that made Karin think back to their first meeting at the ramen shop. _If Sakura wasn’t dating Ino, then she probably had no interest in women..._

Her stomach felt hard as Sakura conceded. “Ah, I guess you’re right. It can’t be helped. Sorry Karin, would you mind if Ino took you to the lab? She can introduce you to everyone.”

Karin just nodded. She knew from first-hand experience that being clingy was not a good look. Even if Sakura wasn’t interested in her in that way, she was hoping they could at least become friends. There was just something about her...or maybe it was some kind of holdover trauma from their first meeting. In any case, she didn’t want to have a repeat of how her relationship with Sasuke had turned out.

“Nice. Well, let’s go then. Don’t forget this time, Forehead.” Ino actually stuck her tongue out at Sakura.

To Karin’s surprise, Sakura did the same.

A weird heaviness brushed through Karin’s chakra channels as she followed Ino into the hallway. It wasn’t jealousy, but she couldn’t identify the feeling. It loomed along with her, even as Ino initiated a conversation.

“If I would have remembered it was your first day today, I would have come sooner and saved you from Sakura’s cooking. It’s god-awful, I know. Trust me, I feel your pain.”

Karin blinked in surprise. “Eh?”

“Oh, you don’t have to pretend,” Ino said, pausing to shoot Karin a mischievous glance.

“Um, well, I mean, aha...”

Ino rolled her eyes and continued walking, obviously unconvinced by Karin’s weak protests.

“It’s not like she hasn’t heard it before. I’ve told her, my boyfriend has told her, her other teammates have told her...really, at this point, I’m not sure who _hasn’t_ said anything...”

_My boyfriend..._

So, Ino had a boyfriend. Somehow that hadn’t been an option that Karin had even considered, and now she felt kind of foolish. The heaviness on her heart faded almost instantly, which made her feel even more embarrassed. All that self-doubt she’d had from subconsciously comparing herself to this woman was all pointless.

She wondered if she could just ask Ino if Sakura was seeing anybody without the reason behind her asking being too obvious. She hoped Ino would just offer the information without prompting.

They turned a corner and stopped to enter an elevator. As they traveled to their destined floor, Ino turned to her and seemed to look her up and down. Karin looked away.

“Anyway, enough about all that. I’m sure you want to just forget about it at this point,” Ino said finally, after a solid three seconds of sizing her up, “So, you’ll be working in the lab, which you already know, duh. Oyone-sensei is the rotating supervisor, and she’s pretty cool. The local supervisor is Sekka-sensei. Can’t say I know him too well. I think he comes off as old and grumpy at first, but he’s actually all soft and caring on the inside, you know the type.”

The elevator doors opened, and Karin followed Ino into another hallway. She nodded along as Ino spoke, unsure of what to say.

“They can answer any lab-related questions you might have. If you have any questions about the psych side of things though, definitely let me know! Actually, I should set up a tour of the facility for you tomorrow...Hmmm….”

The next time they stopped was in front of the lab doors. Just as she had burst into Sakura’s office with no warning, Ino flung open the door to the lab with no hesitation.

“Hey, everybody. Your new recruit is here!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HUGE shout out to the Narutopedia! Seriously they have ALL of the information you could ever need on Naruto there. It was super helpful to consult when I needed a list of all the known medical ninja in the Naruto universe to use as background characters. Also they have summaries of like, every episode, every manga chapter, every arc in the anime or manga...it's just amazing. If you're ever like, trying to remember a certain fact from Naruto, you can probably find it there. 
> 
> Anyway, if you want a breakdown of the Rotation, I've made a handy list. Don't worry, this isn't super important, since they're all just background characters. You don't need to like memorize this or anything to know what's going on. It was just helpful to me when I was writing this, and I thought it might be interesting. Also we can assume there are more people on the team than what's below, these are just the characters that I end up mentioning, regardless of how briefly.
> 
> Hospital Team  
> Sakura - no explanation needed (supervisor of rotating team)  
> Ameno – medinin from Suna (Suna supervisor) ((she was part of the Suna chuunin exams anime filler arc!))  
> Amai – medinin from Kumogakure
> 
> Lab Team  
> Oyone – medinin from Konoha (supervisor of rotating team)  
> Sekka - medinin from Suna (Suna supervisor)  
> Ryoukan – medinin from Suna (you can see Sekka and Ryoukan make appearances as spectators at the Konoha chuunin exams. I think they tell the other shinobi about Gaara or something)  
> Mikoshi – medinin from Suna (was at Suna chuunin exams, on team Matsuri)  
> Ruka – medinin from Kirigakure (technically not there yet as of this chapter)  
> Tsuchibachi - medinin from Iwagakure (This is the only character that I just made up completely. Apparently there aren't any known medinin from Iwa in the series? I made the name based on Iwa naming convention (there seems two big naming patterns going on in Iwa, one where 'tsuchi' is included in the name, and another where 'bachi' is included in the name. Honestly I could go way more in to detail for this, but for a character who is briefly mentioned a couple times total, it's not important.)  
> Karin - (obviously)
> 
> Psych Team  
> Ino – (rotating team supervisor)  
> Unnamed Suna supervisor  
> Hakui – medinin from Kumogakure
> 
> Supreme Overlord of all Rotation teams - Shizune


	7. Chapter 7

The lab was much bigger than anything Karin had ever seen before, and it was overwhelming to take in as Oyone led her around. On a daily basis, the lab processed all kinds of samples. There were the typical samples from patients such as blood, saliva, hair, urine, and feces. Then there were samples from the hospital’s autopsy unit which included organ and skin tissue. In some cases they processed samples of bone marrow or extracted DNA from other samples for analyzing. They ran quality assurance and control for the pharmacy downstairs, meaning that they also were responsible for testing random samples of the medicines to make sure of their composition, purity, and dosage.

There was a section devoted to research. Karin saw several chemists studying poisons, antidotes, and their reactions with the human body. Other researchers were focused on certain kekkei genkai and their manifestation and evolution through mixing bloodlines. Even more researchers were looking at trends in public health, observing the movement of common diseases, and developing vaccines and improved treatments for already well-known illnesses.

And that was just what Karin could remember being shown. Of course, there was also the entire staff that Karin was glad she had reviewed before her first day. She probably still wouldn’t remember all of their names and faces, but she couldn’t imagine how utterly clueless she would have been if she just started from scratch.

When Oyone finally brought Karin to the desk she would share with her mentor and fellow rotating team member, Mikoshi, her head felt like it might spin right off.

“Well, I realize that was a lot of information to process, but don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of time to get used to it. Mikoshi-kun will be training you from now on, so don’t hesitate to ask him any questions.”

Karin let her head drop in a slow nod.

Oyone laughed. “Go easy on her, Mikoshi-kun.”

Then she was gone and Karin was left to stare glassy-eyed at Mikoshi.

Her new mentor had round glasses which reminded her of Kabuto’s, though he wore a Suna hitai-ate across his forehead. Under his labcoat he seemed to be wearing a standard high collared green shinobi vest. He smiled at her, and it seemed a little forced, like he wasn’t used to meeting new people often. Ironically, his reticence made him seem more sincere. Smiles had always come easily to Kabuto, and he could spin lies as naturally as he breathed. It wasn’t that Karin still had anything against Kabuto, but she knew his type shouldn’t be trusted so quickly.

Not wanting to start things off on the wrong foot with Mikoshi, she bowed. “As you know, I’m Karin. It’s nice to meet you. Thank you for taking me under your wing.”

Mikoshi’s smile eased a bit. “No problem. It’s nice to have someone else on the team.”

There was an awkward pause between them before he finally continued. “Well, um. I guess Oyone-sensei already showed you around, so...I can show you how to process some basic samples. Since you’re new, and especially since you’re part of the rotating team, you’re going to be more of a generalist. When you get more experienced, you can probably specialize in a certain area, if you want to...”

~~

Shizune returned to Suna a few days later, and Sakura updated her on everything that had happened in her absence, including the hiring of Karin. Shizune seemed happy about the news, though Sakura could tell that she was already in a good mood because things in Iwa had gone well. The extension to the Hidden Stone Village’s hospital was well under way, and construction was progressing on schedule. According to reports, the new wing would be ready to open by fall. The newly appointed fourth Tsuchikage, Kurotsuchi, seemed pleased with the results so far and was excited for the revamping of their health system.

Shizune told Sakura all of this over a few cups of tea at the end of their shift, before excusing herself to take a scheduled call with Tsunade to transmit the good news. Prior to leaving, she made sure to praise Sakura for running things in her place. She mentioned that she probably wouldn’t need to make another trip to Iwa anytime soon, but if she did, she knew that their group was in good hands.

As Sakura left Shizune’s office, the kind words were still rolling around uncomfortably in her head. She wasn’t so sure she deserved such a massive compliment, even though she had kept up with the reports and the meetings and the interviews. When she thought about the latest new hire, Karin, she didn’t believe she’d done the greatest job making her feel welcome.

It was odd, because Karin wasn’t the first person Sakura had ever hired or helped through the tedious onboarding process. And for the most part, she thought that the day had gone well. But then she would think about their lunch together, and a fit of embarrassment would wash over her. She hadn’t let the poor woman get a word in with all her questions! And her questions were probably too personal, she shouldn’t have pried into her life like that. She’d saved her life once, years ago, but that didn’t mean they had been friends. Sakura had saved countless lives over the years, and she wasn’t entitled to anyone’s personal information...so why had she been so eager…?

Actually, she already knew the answer, and she was surprised that the strange feelings she’d had for the kunoichi back when she’d delivered her to Konoha’s Interrogation and Torture Unit hadn’t gone away after all this time. The second she’d seen Karin in that ramen shop, they’d welled up like blood after a needle prick, and Sakura still couldn’t stop them from coming.

She sighed, turning down the hallway to her own office, still lost in thought. At least she wasn’t Karin’s supervisor or in any position of power over her, not technically, and definitely not now that Shizune was back. Not that any inter-office relationship between them seemed likely—Sakura recalled just how antsy Karin had seemed, picking at the gyoza that she had made her. She hoped she hadn’t come off too strong, and she wondered if maybe she should apologize.

She had just about reached her office, and was in the middle of imagining how she might botch her apology, when Ino appeared.

Sakura started to make a sarcastic comment about how Ino spent more time in this wing of the hospital than her own, when Ino interrupted her.

“Kazekage-sama wants to meet with us.”

~~

To both Sakura and Ino’s surprise, Karin was already in the Kazekage’s office when they arrived. At the sight of her Sakura’s heart gave a panicked kick to the inside of her chest. Her mind immediately raced through potential reasons for Gaara to call them all into his office. Was he upset that they had hired someone while Shizune was away? Had she filled out one of the forms wrong? Was there something she had said or done that would have prompted the red-head to submit a formal complaint about her? Had Ino said or done something when she’d taken Karin over to the lab on her first day?

Gaara seemed to notice her heightened nerves. “Relax, Sakura-san. No one is in trouble.”

Beside her, Ino fidgeted with a loose strand of her hair. The expression on her face was confused, but there was a nervousness in her stance too. If Gaara had just called the two of them to his office, Sakura would have assumed the reason had something to do with the hospital project. Karin’s presence was throwing her off since she had just been hired.

“Understood,” she replied, dipping her head.

Gaara wasn’t one to waste time, and with the tension already so high in the room, he got straight to the point. He drew in a shallow breath and looked each of the three kunoichi standing before him in the eye before beginning.

“I can see you’re all confused as to why I’ve called you here. The fact is, out of everyone currently in Suna, you three have had the closest connection to Uchiha Sasuke.”

He paused to take a breath and let the words settle. Sakura only felt more confused, and judging by appearance, so did Ino and Karin.

“Recently, Sasuke was spotted outside but near the village with a group of missing-nin from Suna. This particular group is a known terrorist organization that we have been tracking for some time. Now, I wouldn’t tell you this if it were just speculation, but their conversation was one I witnessed myself with the Sand Eye jutsu. Without mentioning unnecessary details, both parties were negotiating a deal, and Sasuke explicitly stated that his goal was to destroy Konoha.”

Sakura heard Ino gasp. Karin mumbled something under her breath. A deathly cold chill crept up her spine, but Sakura said nothing. Her mind was blank. And numb. She waited for Gaara to continue.

“They weren’t able to reach a deal, and when the group didn’t cooperate with his demands, he killed them. He left the area and we lost track of him soon after.

“I’ve called you all here to ask if you know anything about this.”

Ino was the first to speak up.

“With all due respect, Kazekage-sama, but how do we know it was really Sasuke-kun and not an impostor?”

“The person in question had his distinct chakra signature,” Gaara deadpanned. His explanation sucked all of the air out of room, and for a few seconds after there was no sound. Sakura wasn’t even sure that she breathed.

Ino bit her lip and looked down, both satisfied and unsatisfied by the answer. It wasn’t possible to mimic someone’s chakra signature.

“Kazekage-sama. I realize I only just arrived in Suna a couple of weeks ago, and so I may be the most suspicious person in the room,” Karin piped up, “I can honestly say that I haven’t had any contact with Sasuke since the war. In fact, I didn’t even know he was out of prison until Sakura-san told me on Monday. However, if you wish to detain me for further interrogation, I understand and will comply entirely.”

Gaara’s expression remained unchanged. He turned his head ever so slightly to shift his gaze towards Sakura, as she was now the only one yet to speak. Heat raked down her cheeks, and as she brushed her fingers across her face to wipe away unwanted tears, she noticed that her hands were shaking.

“Sakura...” She heard Ino say softly.

“To be honest, I also think this is some sort of poser, though neither I nor any Sand ANBU who also witnessed the meeting can figure out how.”

Sakura dropped her arms to her sides again and swallowed the sting in her throat. The thoughts in her head were all jumbled together, but a sharp tang of anger stood apart. She could feel Inner Sakura rising with indignant frustration. _Damn Sasuke! Even now, after all these years...still finding a way to interrupt her life._

“I haven’t had any contact with Sasuke-kun since...probably since before the war,” Ino finally added, “I didn’t see him when he got out of prison and left the village. I’m not sure...Sakura?”

All eyes were on her now. She rolled her shoulders back and stood solid under their gaze. She didn’t know why it was so embarrassing to admit that her former teammate hadn’t contacted her at all since he’d left the Leaf Village a year ago.

“I saw him off when he left Konoha. Me and Kakashi-sensei. That was the last time I had any communication from him. To my knowledge, he hasn’t returned to the village or contacted anyone since then. If anyone would have any more information, it would be Kakashi-sensei.”

Gaara stood from his desk, walked around it, then leaned against its front edge. He looked down, his chin coming to rest in his hand.

“I expected as much.” He turned to Karin, “Don’t worry. I have no reason as of now not to believe what you are telling me, so you won’t need to prepare for interrogation just yet.” Then he turned back to the Leaf kunoichi, “Regardless, I don’t want word of this getting around. Sasuke is very unpopular, and if a rumor were to surface that he had intent to bring harm to a hidden village, it would cause a panic. It also just doesn’t make sense to me, why Sasuke would have any motivation to move against Konoha at this point, and in such a brazen and careless fashion.

“Unfortunately, until more evidence is gathered, this is all we have to work with. In the meantime, I want all of you to keep the contents of this meeting a secret. And, I’d like to know Kakashi’s opinion of all of this. I know it would be a great hindrance to the progress of the hospital, but Sakura or Ino, if one of you could make the trip to Konoha to ask Kakashi about this in person, I would appreciate it. I’m sure you can imagine why I’m hesitant to send this information through a scroll.”

The trip between Konoha and Suna took three days, running at top speed, with minimal breaks for eating and rest. By the time whoever went to give Kakashi the news came back, the earliest possible date for their return would be in six days. While the Sasuke-impostor might not actually be the biggest threat, Gaara was right that it would be problematic if others were to hear whispers of a vengeful Sasuke. And considering the impostor was openly meeting with terrorist organizations, it seemed likely that the word would spread and the damage would be done before those six days were up.

Time was of the essence, and it wouldn’t be practical for either her or Ino to go on foot. Ino hadn’t said anything either, and Sakura wondered if she were thinking the same thing. She turned her head to look at her friend, and the sight of her made an idea pop into Sakura’s head.

“Wait a minute! Ino! Isn’t Sai stopping by Suna tomorrow to see you?”

A dusting of pink spread across Ino’s nose, and she darted her eyes towards Gaara. “Um, well, yes, but I don’t see—”

“With his Choujuu Giga jutsu, he can get from here to Konoha in a day, which is faster than what either of us could manage!”

Ino’s eyes snapped back to Sakura and widened with understanding. She began to nod slowly.

“Kazekage-sama, if you don’t mind, I have a suggestion. If we wait until tomorrow, we can have Sai relay the message to the Hokage. He can be there in back in less than two days time,” Sakura proposed.

Gaara straightened from where he had been leaning against the desk, and a small smile formed on his lips. “I was worried about the time it would take to travel on foot. This seems like a good solution.”

The three kunoichi stayed in Gaara’s office for about fifteen more minutes, hashing out the rest of the details. When they were finally dismissed, it was well past the end of their shifts, and Ino suggested they go out to dinner together.

As if on cue, Karin’s stomach growled, and that sealed the deal.

They ended up at the same ramen shop two blocks from the hospital. Ino, despite having suggested that they eat together, only ordered miso. When aksed about it, she explained that she had bought a lot of groceries because she had wanted to cook dinner for Sai tomorrow, but now that he was likely going to be right back on the road, she didn’t want all of it to go to waste.

Karin suggested that Ino make it anyway, and just give it to him as a bento to take with him on his trip to Konoha, and Ino practically jumped out of her chair at the suggestion. She slapped down enough ryo to cover her meal and then she was gone.

Karin looked at Sakura with a crooked smile on her face. She seemed a bit surprised.

“I can’t take credit for that idea. It was your bento the other day that made me think of it...”

Sakura waved it off. “I don’t mind. Their relationship is still pretty new, so she just gets a little overexcited.”

It wouldn’t be the first time Ino deserted her to meet up with Sai, though it was infrequent since he was rarely on missions near Suna. She gushed about him enough to make up for it though, and while Sakura was glad that Ino and Sai were happy together, she felt constantly reminded that she didn’t have anyone like that in her life.

She couldn’t exactly say she felt lonely in Suna. Even taking Ino out of the equation, she was plenty friendly with the majority of the Rotation, and she often went out with Shizune or Ameno or others from her unit. Hell, she’d even had dinner with Gaara on more than one occasion, even though most of those times had been because Naruto also happened to be in Suna.

Anyway, there was a difference between loneliness and feeling...uncoupled. Shinobi had a tendency to marry young, with the unspoken reason behind that because they tended to die young. Back in her academy days, Sakura thought that a twenty-year old was ancient, and she fully expected to be at least in a committed relationship by then. But her twentieth birthday had come and passed this year, and though Sakura was no longer a teenager, she didn’t feel any more like the legal adult she was supposed to be.

Medic ninja were not supposed to die until they were the last of their platoon, which effectively ensured that Sakura had a long life ahead of her. While she wasn’t afraid to face that time alone, and she was sure she could still feel fulfilled at the end of it, she would prefer to experience it with a partner. Not that she even really knew what it would be like to experience life with a partner, considering she’d botched her only chance with Ino years ago. Maybe she would try it and hate it, but she would like the chance to find out.

There were times after her shifts at the hospital that she would think about it, and get so caught up in feeling undesirable. The only others to have ever shown an interest in her were Naruto and Lee, and while Sakura found that incredibly sweet of each of them, neither had been exactly her _type_...

“Uh...Sakura...sensei?”

Sakura’s head snapped up from where she had been unconsciously staring at her untouched ramen. Blood rushed behind her ears to fill her face as she glanced at Karin with embarrassment.

“Oh my God. I’m so sorry, I just...I really spaced out there.”

Karin’s eyes were wide and soft and understanding. Sakura wished she could drown herself in their dark depths so she wouldn’t have to face the shame over her complete lack of consideration.

“And just Sakura is fine. You don’t have to call me ‘sensei,’ especially not outside of work,” she mumbled.

“No problem!” Karin affirmed before turning to the curry she had apparently ordered today and tucking in.

Sakura felt her lips rise in a smile. Now that Karin was here, she didn’t feel like the odd one out. She knew better than to put all of her hopes onto one person, but that wasn’t what was happening here. Seeing Karin after all this time may have been a coincidence, but Sakura truly felt there was a connection between them, the nature of which—romantic or otherwise—she was eager to explore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 20 is the legal age of adulthood in Japan, so I assume it's that way in the Narutoverse as well. (Although, I think Japan has voted to lower the age to 18 in the coming years, which seems like a big change).


	8. Chapter 8

On her way to work the next morning, Sakura spotted Ino leaving her apartment complex at the same time that she left hers. They lived across the street from each other, so this really wasn’t that uncommon of an occurrence. Unlike how Ino would usually meet her in the street so they could walk to the hospital together, this time she dashed over to Sakura before the door behind her even shut.

Sakura figured the arrival of Sai later was what was causing the sudden nervous energy, and she expected Ino to chatter her ear off for at least the next fifteen minutes. To her surprise, the first words out of Ino’s mouth had nothing to do with Sai.

“So, how did it go last night?”

Sakura looked at her with sincere confusion. The tone of her voice and the way Ino was wiggling her eyebrows seemed to suggest that Sakura had been up to something scandalous. Her night of taking a bath and reading until 21:00, when she had promptly gone to bed, was anything but.

When Ino saw that Sakura had no idea what she was talking about, she physically slapped the palm of her hand against her forehead and groaned.

“I see. So you wasted the perfect opportunity I gave you when I left dinner early.”

Sakura’s face lit with heat, and she fixed her gaze straight ahead down the dusty Suna roads. Loose grains of sand swirled past them in the air, and she tried not to choke after realizing what Ino meant.

What Ino _knew_.

_Damn sensory ninja._ And then—stoking the fire under her skin with even more embarrassment— _wasn’t Karin a sensory ninja too?_

Sakura really hoped it was just because Ino knew her so well and for so long and not because she was being really obvious about it.

Since there was no point in denying her crush, she didn’t. “How was I supposed to know that’s what you were doing? And anyway, I—I don’t know. It’s probably unprofessional...”

Ino sniffed and tossed her long blonde hair over her shoulder. It billowed behind her like a flag as she continued walking at Sakura’s side. “You’re not supposed to have to know. You’re supposed to see an opportunity when it presents itself and take it! That’s like, rule one of being a ninja.”

“Isn’t it ‘Always watch your back’ or something?” Sakura mumbled.

Ino ignored her. “It was pretty flawlessly executed by me, I have to say. Though I admit that I was kind of scrambling for a reason to get lost when Karin practically handed me the perfect excuse. And to think that you just blew it! What a waste!

“Anyway, what do you mean ‘unprofessional’? That’s bullshit. You two work in totally different units, so it’s fine. You probably don’t even run into each other on most days. In fact, when was the last time you even saw her at work? On her first day?”

Sakura muttered something that didn’t sound like words to either of them.

“It’s not like you’re her boss or anything. I mean, okay technically you kind of were when you were taking over for Shizune, but so what? She’s back, and if you feel so ethically distraught, I can always take over for her next time she leaves. It’s a pain in the ass, but as your best friend, I would be willing to make that sacrifice so you could have some kind of love life,” Ino said dramatically. She went as far as to put her the back of her hand to her forehead and sigh deeply, as if the romance of it all was getting to her or maybe to prove how much effort she was pledging. “Besides, then we could go on double dates, and wouldn’t that be the coolest?”

Sakura pinched the skin at the bridge of her nose between her eyebrows, as some of the heat from embarrassment morphed into annoyance. “It’s not that easy,” she huffed.

Ino stopped walking and turned to fully face Sakura. She put her hands on her hips, and sighing, Sakura paused and turned to her.

“Well it won’t get any easier if you don’t do anything about it! If you’re afraid she doesn’t like you or something, don’t be. I could spot it from Iwagakure, the way she gets all flustered around you.”

Sakura just kept staring, dumbly, and wishing she had left for work five minutes earlier.

“If you’re really that doubtful, I could always use my mind-transfer jutsu and—”

“No,” Sakura demanded flatly.

Ino held up her hands defensively. “Okay, okay. I was just saying.”

The pair continued walking again, though Sakura had a feeling that Ino wasn’t finished. Sakura could see the entrance to the hospital from here. If she could just make it another three minutes or so—! But now Ino had put all these ideas in her head—ideas that weren’t exactly new, just buried.

“Besides, now doesn’t seem like a good time. She just moved here and is getting all settled in, and then there’s the whole problem with the Sasuke impostor,” Sakura mentioned, trying to convince herself as much as Ino.

She didn’t need to see Ino’s expression to tell that she wasn’t persuaded in the slightest.

“We’re shinobi. It’s never a good time,” Ino pointed out.

Sakura couldn’t argue with that. She brushed a hand through her hair, not noticing that they had entered the hospital’s campus and passed the point where she and Ino usually split off to go to different buildings. Her thoughts were floating away from her, just like the grains of sand in the wind earlier.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so difficult to ask Karin to hang out after work. Nothing serious. Just a casual chat over some tea.

By the time they reached the entrance to the ER, Sakura finally realized that Ino was still with her. They paused outside the door.

“I’ll think about it,” Sakura promised.

Ino rolled her eyes at the weak committal. “You better, Billboard Brow. Otherwise, I might have to use my mind-transfer jutsu on you.”

~~

Karin very vaguely remembered Sai. Very pale, stoic. His hair was a little longer now, more unkempt. He carried a large scroll on his back that she didn’t remember from before.

“Aren’t you...aren’t you that tongue guy?”

Sai’s expression remained completely blank. Sakura seemed confused. Gaara frowned. Ino had been blushing profusely since she’d stepped into the Kazekage’s office, so her complexion didn’t change, but she narrowed her eyes.

“Are you referring to the Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal?” Sai said, after two beats too long. His voice was eerily pleasant, considering there was no trace of any emotion in his features.

“I guess?” Karin said, and at the same time Sakura seemed to have some kind of epiphany.

“Oh, right! You were there after Danzou...and then Kakashi-sensei, Naruto, and I went to wake up the others. And when Sai woke up, his curse mark was gone!” Sakura explained hastily.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s it!” Karin agreed. She sent a quick smile to Sakura, thanking her without words.

_In her imagination, Sakura swooned and then Karin was there to catch her of course and—_

In real life, the Kazekage cleared his throat.

“Well, now that we’re all acquainted. Or, reacquainted.”

For Sai’s sake, he went over the same details that he had previously discussed with the kunoichi. The impostor hadn’t been spotted since the last time, so there wasn’t any additional information to be shared. Gaara was more outspoken about his opinion that the Sasuke he had seen was most likely an impostor, even though he couldn’t explain the exact likeness. He said that in the days since the meeting had occurred, neither he nor any of the Sand ANBU could come up with any plausible motivation for the real Sasuke to be acting this way.

Here, Karin wondered if she should have been thinking of ways to discern the real Sasuke from the fake. Though she’d only heard the news yesterday, she hadn’t really thought much about it once she left the Kazekage’s office. And that in itself, she realized, was kind of a miracle.

When she first joined Sasuke’s group, back when it was still called Team Hebi, there wasn’t a minute of the day that went by without her thinking of him. She’d been so under his spell, charmed by his beauty, captivated by his talent. She had pledged her love to him at every chance she got, and she had told herself that it didn’t matter if he rejected her and that she would become an old maid who stayed faithful to her true love.

Thinking back on it made her want to cringe. Now, she couldn’t even be bothered to think about Sasuke even when it was relevant to do so. Though this also made her question what had been occupying her thoughts so much in the past day that the mystery of this Sasuke-clone hadn’t intrigued her in the slightest.

Work, mostly. It was only her second week, and everything was still new to her, and there was still so much information to take in. Sure, she was only doing the most basic sample analysis, but there was also the matter of learning where all the equipment was, the locations of the bathrooms on every floor of every building was, who to ask for when picking up tissue samples from the morgue...

Even right after the meeting with the Kazekage yesterday, any thoughts about the unknown ninja had quickly gone out the window because she was eating dinner alone with Sakura since Ino abruptly left. She’d actually managed to order something she actually wanted to eat and to have a light conversation with the pink-haired kunoichi. When she’d walked home by herself after they’d both finished their meals, she felt like she was glowing. For the first time in her life, there were opportunities all around her.

She had a job that made her feel useful while satisfying her urge to travel. She had a steady income so she wouldn’t have to forage and hunt for her next meal. Her coworkers seemed like morally upright ethical people who wanted to actually help others, and her supervisor didn’t ask to bite her. She would probably make friends in the Rotation. Suna was pretty nice so far. Sakura was pretty _and_ nice.

When Karin went to sleep at night, she felt eager to wake up the next morning.

So, yeah, she hadn’t really spent any time thinking about the impostor or what it meant.

_But it wasn’t like the Kazekage had asked them to, so, it was probably fine!_

“I hadn’t heard that Sasuke was hanging around anywhere, but I have been gathering intel nearby Sunagakure,” Sai said, after Gaara had finished relaying the situation, “There’s been some activity with missing-nin with chakra cloaks, similar to the tailed-beast cloaks, but synthetic. Kakashi-sama had me investigating, and my lead brought me out here in the past few weeks. I wonder if they could be connected.”

“Hmm,” Gaara seemed to consider all of the details. “The meeting I overheard didn’t contain any mention of synthetic tailed-beast chakra cloaks, but that doesn’t mean the two aren’t related. I will let the ANBU know, and we will continue to monitor the situation. Thank you.”

Sai nodded. “I should be able to get to Konoha and back in two days, assuming nothing out of the ordinary happens. When I return, I will let you know Kakashi-sama’s answer.”

Gaara nodded back in acknowledgment, then he turned his attention to the kunoichi. “I feel that this goes without saying, but if you hear anything at the hospital...”

“We will report it to you immediately!” Sakura confirmed without prompt.

“Agreed!” Ino added.

“Yeah!” Karin exclaimed because she felt like she needed to say something too.

Gaara looked at all of them again. His eyes seemed tired. With everything settled, he bowed his head.

“Dismissed!”

~~

The next morning, Karin was just putting on her lab coat when Sakura came through the door.

Mikoshi, who had been pulling on his gloves, looked up and greeted her with some surprise. “Sakura-san, is something wrong?”

Karin wasn’t sure why he assumed something was wrong. Sakura was beaming, her skin slightly rosy and glistening like she’d sprinted here from the hospital’s main entrance. She was holding a rectangular parcel wrapped in a brightly colored cloth that featured cartoon cats. She held it in front of her as if she were delivering a skin tissue sample from the morgue.

“No, nothing!” Sakura said, her voice a little higher in pitch than usual. “I just uh—actually, I’m here to see Karin.”

Karin discreetly pinched the skin on her thigh to make sure this wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t. As she watched Sakura hold out the wrapped parcel for her, she felt her heartbeat accelerating.

“Uh?” she asked intelligently.

Sakura pulled the item back towards her chest, as if Karin had rejected it. At the same time, Karin had tried to reach for it and ended up closing her hands around nothing. The fact that Mikoshi had witnessed the mishap made it feel all the more embarrassing. Karin laughed nervously, too much and too loud. Sakura was laughing too though, which seemed to be a good sign.

“Sorry, I—I just, uh, I had some extra...what I mean is, since you just moved here, and it’s probably a hassle to...well, I made you this bento.”

She thrust the lunchbox forward again, closing her eyes and smiling so tightly that it must have hurt.

“Oh. Thank you,” Karin said.

She took the bento from Sakura with a shallow bow. Sakura’s explanation wasn’t registering with her, and when she skimmed the medi-nin’s chakra, she found that it was a matted mess of snarls and tangles. _Maybe she’s not a morning person_ , the logical part of her brain told her. She didn’t allow herself to listen to to what the other parts of her brain were saying about this, but she could feel their influence over her as her body temperature rose.

Sakura laughed again, though at what, no one knew.

“Well, see you later!”

After the lab door had closed behind her, Mikoshi slowly turned his head to look at Karin, who was still standing there solid as a statue. He had a wry grin on his face.

“I know it’s not any of my business, but—”

“Then don’t say it,” Karin interrupted, her voice made rough to hide her insecurity.

“Your face is as red as your hair.”

~~

After Ino’s half joke half threat, Sakura really tried to work up the nerve to say something to Karin. She brought her a bento of gyoza the following morning, and the morning after that. The second morning, when she still couldn’t bring herself to confess, she purposely ‘forgot’ to place chopsticks in the wrapped bento she delivered.

Sai was scheduled to come to Suna in the afternoon, and if Kakashi directed her and Ino to do something, she might not have another chance to ask Karin for a while. So, it had to be today, and she returned to the lab at lunch to drop off the chopsticks and to force herself to get the words out. She knew this wouldn’t be so painful if she didn’t allow herself to drag it out for so long, but the thought of putting her feelings out there was terrifying. She and Ino had discussed their feelings for each other way after the fact, and her fawning over Sasuke had never been more than a cover.

Karin seemed surprised when she dropped by the lab for the second time that day. Mikoshi didn’t.

“Ah, Sakura-san. Care to join us for lunch, perhaps? You’re just a few minutes early.” He had a knowing grin on his face. Inner Sakura wanted to smack it off him.

“No,” she replied, too quickly and too defensively.

_Idiot, you should have said yes. What the hell?_

“I just forgot to put chopsticks in the bento I dropped off earlier,” she explained, holding out the plastic blue pair as if to prove she wasn’t here for any other ulterior motive.

Karin was looking at her with an unreadable expression on her face. Sakura unconsciously scanned the chakra levels in the room. Karin’s was perfectly normal, which didn’t give away anything. For a second, she almost wished Ino were there with her—not for her mind transfer jutsu—but for her sensory perception.

“Sorry, you’re going to have to wait a few minutes for us to finish up so we can take off our gloves,” Mikoshi added, turning back to a large stack of agar plates and a pile of sealed and labeled swabs. “But feel free to have a seat! It’s not that boring, I promise.”

Sakura found an unoccupied chair and dragged it over, but not too close to where Mikoshi and Karin were working. They were transferring samples that had been taken with the swabs onto the agar plates, then closing and labeling them. There was a large incubator filled with similar labeled petri dishes along the wall behind their workbench.

Karin looked over her shoulder once, nervously, though she quickly set her eyes back on the task at hand. She didn’t seem to need instruction on what to do, and when Mikoshi began talking again, Sakura assumed it was to break the weird tension that had settled in their little corner of the lab.

“So, Sakura-san, you’ve been in Suna for a few months now, isn’t that right?” Mikoshi asked amiably.

“A few,” Sakura said, absentmindedly.

She was too focused on Karin’s back, on the tightness in her shoulders as she uncapped a permanent marker and labeled a completed culture dish. The red-head’s silence and possible unease stoked the fires of the searing dread in the pit of her stomach. Had she made Karin uncomfortable with all of the attention lately? Maybe she shouldn’t ask her out...She didn’t really know how she was going to anyway, even though now was probably her last chance to do so.

“I guess it’s still exciting for you then, exploring Suna and all that. I grew up here so, you know, it’s not a big deal for me,” Mikoshi went on.

“Uh-huh,” Sakura mumbled. The little focus she had on what Mikoshi was saying diminished even more as her doubts and apprehension grew. Making someone lunch two days in a row was a pretty obvious sign of interest, wasn’t it? But Karin hadn’t made any kind of move. Was that a response in its own way? A polite rejection?

“Have you been to Yakiniku R? The owner is the brother of the owner of Yakiniku Q in Konoha, so you might be able to compare them.”

“I haven’t.”

“You and Karin should go then! I was just telling her about it, before you got here. Since she just moved here, she’s still looking for stuff to do around town after work.”

The glaze over Sakura’s eyes began to evaporate. She blinked to see both Karin and Mikoshi had finished their work and were pulling off their gloves. They were both facing her now, though from her angle, Sakura couldn’t see Karin’s eyes due to the glare from her glasses.

“They’re actually having some kind of promotion right now, which is also why I was talking about it, because today is the last day. You’re not busy, are you?”

All of the panicked buzzy thoughts in Sakura’s head slowed down, bombarded with confusion. She looked at Mikoshi like she hadn’t understood. “Um, tonight? Well not until—”

“That’s great! Then you and Karin can go. It’s really good, I promise!”

Sakura looked over at Karin, who was unbuttoning her lab coat. She hadn’t said anything this whole time, and that made Sakura worried.

“Would that be okay with you, Karin? We could go before our meeting with the Kazekage...”

“Yeah!” Karin yelped, her voice high. She cleared her throat and tried again, lowering the pitch of her voice this time. “Yeah. Yes. That would be. Great.”

Relief slowly trickled through her, winding its way around the impenetrable confusion. She took a slow breath to unlock the stuck feeling in her chest. Sakura wasn’t sure what had just happened. She hadn’t actually asked Karin on a date, but it seemed like they were going on one anyway. This counted, right?

Before any of them could say anything else, another of the lab staff dashed over into their circle.

“Hey guys, you ready for lunch? I just finished helping Takuya-san, and—oh hi, Sakura-san! Are you coming too?” Tsuchibachi called, rocking back and forth with ravenous energy.

“Oh, no. No, I was just—” Sakura stood up. “I was just going.”

She suddenly had a few million questions she desperately needed to ask Ino.

“I—uh—I’ll see you after work then, Karin?” she asked, creeping closer to the door.

Tsuchibachi continued bouncing, blissfully unaware of the situation that had been interrupted. Mikoshi had his hand over his face and was shaking his head. Karin was still oddly inexpressive.

“Y-yeah. Later.”

Sakura was halfway to Ino’s office before she realized she had forgot to turn over the chopsticks.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is heavily based from episode 431 of Shippuden which is basically Karin's backstory and it's SO SAD

Karin felt slightly more calm as she waited for Sakura at Yakiniku R. She hoped that Sakura hadn’t gotten the wrong idea earlier when she’d been so quiet as Mikoshi very conspicuously asked Sakura on a date on Karin’s behalf. It wasn’t like her to shy away from raising her voice and barking orders when something wasn’t going her way, but everything was still so new and she didn’t want to screw it up. The hospital laboratory system wasn’t like Orochimaru’s slipshod work stations, made up of an assortment of mismatched equipment and with no proper personal protection equipment. Suna did everything by the book, and she wasn’t sure yelling at her coworkers fit into that model.

“Sorry, were you waiting long?” Sakura apologized, once she dashed up, slightly out of breath. Her cheeks were glistening pink from the exertion. Her hair was a little out of place under her hitai-ate, and Karin wanted to fix it, but she didn’t dare.

“Ah, nope. Just a couple minutes. It doesn’t look too crowded anyway.”

Their shift ended a few hours before the usual dinner rush, which worked in their favor. They quickly got a seat at a table with a mini grill embedded in its center. Karin had never been to a restaurant like this before, not when she had been traveling on her own, not during her time with Orochimaru, and certainly not any time earlier. Luckily, Sakura explained the menu to her without being asked.

After they ordered, Karin finally built up the courage to talk about something other than the food.

“Thanks for the bento for the past two days. I really do appreciate it, and—” She still didn’t bring up her dislike of gyoza. _One day, but not today_. “Sorry about that Mikoshi bastard. I mean he’s a nice guy and all, but still a bastard for kind of pushing you to go here with me today...”

Karin’s heart thumped hard against her ribs as she watched Sakura’s lips form a protest.

“Oh. No, it’s no problem. I was going to…” She broke off her sentence, and covered her mouth with her hand as she began to laugh, “Actually, I was going to ask you anyway, so...”

The bruised inside of her ribcage ached as she tried to draw in a short breath. The hints all seemed to be there, but she didn’t want to look like an idiot by assuming. Chewing on her lip, she struggled to find the right words.

“It’s funny how everything worked out in the end,” she said, carefully enunciating each word. She wanted to work the word ‘date’ in there somewhere, just to confirm, but her brain couldn’t handle thinking and talking at the same time.

Sakura’s green eyes glittered at her as their waiter came by and dropped off their first few dishes to be cooked. The heat from the grill wafted across her face as she leaned over to carefully place her vegetables. As her arm extended from her sleeve, she noticed Sakura’s eyes trailing over the nest of scars across her skin.

“Is that from your kekkei genkai?” Sakura asked, changing the subject to what she thought was an innocent topic.

Karin froze as phantom pain pierced through each bite mark. Hand shaking, she dropped a piece of carrot haphazardly onto the grill before setting her chopsticks down and pulling back her sleeve to reveal more of her arm. She’d never been self-conscious about the marks before, but now, with Sakura’s gaze on them, she wasn’t so sure.

The worst of the marks, the deepest, sometimes the ones that had been infected, were raised and dark, ropy, hyper-pigmented skin that wrinkled easily when she moved. Older marks were faded and white, some of the bigger ones creating noticeable divots.

When she was really little, when her mom was still around, she’d hated seeing them on her mother’s skin. Hated seeing them on her own skin when her mother was gone. Hated the people that made them. Later, it was just part of her life. The default state of her skin was covered in red dashed lines, mottled with yellow and blue bruises sometimes. She’d stopped...caring? Noticing? That was just how things were…

“They’re not from a kekkei genkai. They’re from...healing...”

Sakura didn’t understand, and Karin knew she was being vague. Something kept her history at the back of her throat, barred from escaping her mouth.

“Oh so it’s like...it’s like my Hundred Healings Mark?” Sakura asked, pointing to the purple diamond on her forehead. “This is a seal for a mass amount of chakra that I’ve stored over time. It’s for emergency use, like during the war when I needed to heal a lot of people quickly.”

Karin’s chest tightened as Sakura’s curious eyes flicked back to her arm.

“I know, well, I think I saw Sasuke bite you, when...with Danzou. Anyway, I think that’s what healed him, and I’ve always been wondering. So that must be how it works then? You store chakra in those marks, and when bitten, it’s released to heal the recipient?”

It was a logical deduction, and Karin was tempted to let her believe that’s what they were. But she was already hiding the truth about her dislike of gyoza. She didn’t want all of her interactions with Sakura to be centered around lies, especially something so integral to her life like this.

It’s why she always wore long sleeves, high collars, long socks…

“Chakra is released when my skin is bitten,” Karin corrected her. She tried to sound objective about it, like she was removed from the phenomenon. Like how Orochimaru-sama had explained it to Kabuto. “The marks are scars left over from the bites.”

Sakura’s eyes flew up to meet hers, wide and round and shiny like polished jade. There were more questions that Karin could see written all over her face. _Did they have to bite so hard? Why were there so many? When? How? Why?_

Many of the questions were ones that Karin had asked herself before. Many she still didn’t have answers to.

“I’m sorry, I—”

“No, it’s alright,” Karin reassured her. In a way, she felt like telling Sakura had been a long time coming. Inevitable since the moment the medi-nin had brought her back from the brink of death. And then, because she wanted to rid herself of at least some of the heaviness in her core she continued. “It’s a long story, but I can tell you.”

~

Karin hadn’t known much about her family at all, just that she and her mother were refugees living in the Hidden Grass Village. That much was easy, because every villager in Kusagakure never let either of them forget it. They came and took her mom from their shoddy hut on the edge of town every morning and dumped her back at night. Sometimes she would be gone for days.

She didn’t remember much about her mother anymore. She had long red hair too. Her skin was always cracked and bloody and bruised, covered in the same bites marks that Karin would later inherit. She never complained though. With her soft voice, she would spend the few hours she was allowed to rest with Karin, telling her bedtimes stories and shushing her to sleep. Even when Karin cried and yelled that it wasn’t fair, her mother only smiled.

One day, the shinobi came back to the hut without her mother. Karin had been waiting outside since the sun set, and her legs were stiff with cold and her face was streaked with tears. Without explanation, the soldier grabbed her by the arm with too much force and began to yank her down the path they usually took her mother. Karin felt like her shoulder was going to be pulled out of its socket, but she didn’t struggle. Her mother was always so strong, and she would be too.

They arrived at the hospital, and the ninja continued to drag her along. Eyes of doctors and nurses and other patients leered at her. There were many, many patients. So many that there weren’t enough beds or rooms, and sometimes there were just bodies piled in corners, sat in their own puddles of blood.

“We took losses from a surprise attack, and the village is overflowing with wounded.” It was the first time the man hauling her along had spoken to her. She looked up at him with big blurry confused eyes. “We couldn’t make it with just your mother.”

At that point, they passed a room. Maybe the soldier knew who was in the room and that was why he had brought it up. Karin, who so far hadn’t resisted, suddenly broke out of the man’s grasp and stumbled her way to the single bed inside. A white sheet draped across the woman’s body, but Karin knew, even without seeing the gnawed through arm that dangled just out of its reach. Honestly, it was barely recognizable as an arm anymore.

Kusa wasn’t strong at the time, and Karin had seen death plenty of instances before. But never quite like this. Karin hadn’t eaten much in the past three days, but suddenly what little contents she had in her stomach were on the floor mixing with the still-warm blood dripping from her mother’s fingertips.

The man didn’t give her much time to mourn. Her came into the room and grabbed a fistful of the back of her shirt collar, pulling her back out into the hallway. Even with the cloth tight around her neck, she managed to choke out some protest.

“Let me go! My mom, she’s—”

“It’s unfortunate, but there was no other way to protect the village.”

This was Karin’s first lesson that a shinobi’s life always belonged to someone or something else.

“We still have more wounded.”

The man slid open a door full of maimed shinobi, horrifically and brutally disfigured, some dismembered, all bleeding and screaming. Doctors and nurses rushed around in red and white blurs, and Karin had never felt so scared in her life.

She tried to shrink back, but the man pushed her forward. She was free to stumble one step into the inferno of pain that surrounded her. Her mother had never mentioned to her their inclination for sensory perception—that she would easily pick up on what other people felt. The agony whisked around her like fire through the wind, and she hurt so bad everywhere that her vision swam with black spots. She tried to turn and run out of the room; the man easily caught her wrist and held her in place.

“You’re late! Where’s that woman?” A doctor’s voice, not any friendlier than the man currently holding her captive.

“Dead. This is her daughter. She has the same ability.”

The doctor curled his icy spidery fingers around her other wrist. The shinobi let go and allowed the new person to drag her forward. She tried to pull herself away, but as they moved deeper into the room, the strength from her body diverted more and more just to keep her conscious in the midst of all the gore.

The shinobi watched her go, staring at her with flat eyes. “We’re letting you stay because you have nowhere to go. Work hard to earn that privilege.”

Her mother had never taught Karin how her healing ability worked, but as it turned out, her instruction wasn’t necessary. The doctor knew what to do. He pulled the fabric of her sleeve back, baring her arm to a bleeding and cursing ninja, instructing him to bite down, hard.

“No. Stop! Please!”

The doctors turned her out in the snow when they were done with her.

“We took your mother to your house. Starting tomorrow, come to the hospital every day, even if no one comes to get you.”

A shinobi served the village until their dying breath. She didn’t cry until she got home.

The next lesson she learned was that shinobi often had to learn things on the fly with little to no instruction.

She was brought to an active battlefield and passed around as tags exploded all around her. She felt a shinobi die with his teeth still sunk deep into her thigh. At the end of the day, when she somehow made it through, and both sides retreated to their camps for the night, all she wanted was to stay collapsed on the ground, alone and untouched. They passed her around again, and she didn’t sleep at all.

She was the tool of the village, and she didn’t fight it. She knew no other identity to take. The ninja around her didn’t seem to have it much better, always coming back from another battle on the brink of death, missing skin and organs and sometimes bones.

They gave her the opportunity to go to the chuunin exams. Her mission was to keep her teammates replenished. The task would have been easier if her teammates had not actively tried to ditch her at all costs. Their lack of cooperation, unsurprisingly, did not lead to success. She returned to Kusa to more scowls and grumbling. She thought they might kick her out this time.

Instead, she was given a last chance. They sent her to the North Fortress. She could feel the sting of kunai slicing through skin before the tower was even in her line of vision, and her blood was burning by the time she arrived. By now, she had at least figured out how to tone down or switch off all that sensory input. She walked into the medic quarters numb and ready. Writhing mounds of lacerated shinobi cried out to her, each of their wails eroding at the barrier she had put up.

Volunteers ushered her around the room. There were more wounded than usual, and when more bodies were carried in through the door, she started to sweat. She didn’t have the chakra to keep blocking all the sensory input, and when her barrier failed, and everything flooded in, she thought she was going to die.

“Please...no more. It’s impossible. I can’t go on...”

The doctors and nurses did not listen. They saw helpless victims that needed saving.

Karin had sympathy, she really did. She couldn’t _not_ when she felt their pain too. But she knew that they weren’t as helpless as everyone thought. They helped themselves to her body with no difficulty.

She never got any orders to return to the main village, so she stayed. She had nowhere else to go, and her debt to Kusa seemed to be ever increasing. She didn’t understand how she suddenly owed the village _more_ , but the fact was that sometimes people followed her home. Having no formal training, she never won any fight she started, and eventually she stopped trying. Like everything else, it was easier to just let things happen and get it over with.

Everyone knew who she was; she had the marks all over to prove it.

One day, when the fighting had slowed, she was on her way to the medic quarters when a group of traders crossed her path. Ugly and dirty, one grabbed her by her hair and twisted it behind her back, bringing her to her knees.

“This red hair. I bet she’s a remnant from the Hidden Eddy Village. She’ll be worth something.”

Before they could say any more, the man’s grip on her hair released. She whipped around and blinked the tears from her eyes to see several large snakes sweeping both of the traffickers away. When the hissing horde disappeared behind some buildings, another man stepped forward. He didn’t lunge for her like the others, and though he leered at her, it seemed for a different purpose than what she was accustomed to.

He offered to take her away. He promised her that she would never be treated like this again. Karin didn’t really care if he was lying. At the moment, anything seemed better than her current hell.

“You must decide for yourself,” he told her.

Among all the things he ever said to her, those words stuck.

She went with him. She met Kabuto. She learned that Orochimaru hadn’t been exactly truthful, because they did use her to heal test subjects and sometimes Orochimaru himself. Even so, her conditions were better, and she felt almost thankful to him for taking her away from Kusa. He and Kabuto taught her ninjutsu and taijutsu. They valued her and invested in developing her skills. She learned medical ninjutsu. She learned basic laboratory practices, the experimental process, simple chemical reactions, compounds for poisons and healing concoctions.

Orochimaru actually praised her work, and as her skills grew, so did her responsibilities. He put her in charge of his northern hideout, and she had never felt so happy before. With her tentative newfound joy, she realized that this was the first time that anyone had ever given her anything.

She went up to the northern hideout, and Kabuto was really ramping up the experiments. His medical ninjutsu had also grown stronger over time, and she wasn’t needed for healing as much. She liked that her time as a living first aid kit seemed to be winding down, and she felt a rush of excitement every time she was needed to run an experiment or keep some prisoners in line. To be depended on for the skills that she had worked hard to establish—the feeling was intoxicating.

And then Sasuke arrived and shook up her whole world. He was hot, and he made her feel things that no one else had before. He respected her personal space, in fact, he respected everyone’s personal space. He seemed to dislike being touched by others. He never asked her for anything, nor did he ever take anything from her. She’d never met someone who so thoroughly did not care about her presence one way or the other, and compared to everyone else that she had ever met, that felt safe. He was talented and misunderstood and had lived a shitty childhood just like her.

When he complimented her skills and told her that he needed her on his team, how could she say no? In the second it took her to agree, she had already fallen in love.

But, he wasn’t really assembling a team as much as gathering the tools he needed to accomplish his goals. It only took her a couple more teeth-shaped scars and a sword of lightning through her chest to figure it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Random fact: Sakura's misunderstanding of Karin's Heal Bite jutsu in this chapter is actually based off my own misunderstanding of the jutsu. Until episode 431 of Shippuden, I thought those marks were chakra seals!! It made episode 431 all the more horrifying.
> 
> Irrelevant fact: I've been job hunting the past few months and I just got an offer and now I have to quit my current job to start my new one and for some reason this is terrifying to me because change scares me and I'm so anxious about it and I wish I could just be excited about it but I just feel like I'm about to jump off a bridge >_<


	10. Chapter 10

The meeting with Sai and the Kazekage was short, but even so, Karin had a hard time paying attention. She couldn’t stop thinking about her dinner with Sakura. She couldn’t stop the swarming through her chakra channels or the thrumming of her heart or the sweat dampening her clothes and making her shiver.

_Sakura had—_

“...Hokage-sama also thinks that the Sasuke who was seen talking to the missing nin was an imposter, though he hasn’t had any communication with him lately. He sent a message, and for now he wants to keep things quiet and wait for a response. The challenge...”

Sakura wasn’t a sensory-type ninja, but she had cried real tears, and Karin could feel it in the way her chakra tumbled and folded that she was overwhelmed with empathy.

This was the same Sakura that had saved her life when she was still an enemy ninja, aiding the person who had just killed her Hokage. She would have died without intervention. _She would have—_

The same Sakura who had put in a good word with Shizune so that she landed the job immediately. Who had made her bento three times now, with what she believed was Karin’s favorite food. Who had been working up the nerve to ask her on a date for two agonizing days.

Sakura of the Hundred Healings Mark, former student of one of the Legendary Sannin, member of the Team 7 that brought down Madara and Kaguya and saved the world, creator of the Rotating Medi-nin Health Alliance Program, cute, dorky, compassionate Sakura-chan.

“I thought he might...” The Kazekage was responding to Sai now, though Karin only processed bits and pieces. “...of that opinion...monitor and see how the situation unfolds...”

Sensing that the meeting was coming to an end, Karin pulled her awareness back to the Kazekage’s office.

“For now, we won’t make a move. If we receive further communication from the Hokage, or if the ANBU detect Sasuke’s presence around the village again, we can reevaluate.”

He scanned he room the room once more, ostensibly content with everyone’s understanding. Then, with the slightest shift, his eyes settled back to Karin.

“Karin, please stay for a minute. Everyone else, dismissed.”

The warm floaty thoughts finally shook loose, and Karin stood still with faint apprehension as the others shuffled out of the room. She wondered if the Kazekage could tell that she hadn’t been paying attention and was about to reprimand her for it, though it would be somewhat odd since she wasn’t a Suna nin. Another horrifying thought slipped through her mind, quick to replace the space her giddiness had vacated. It’s true she wasn’t of this village, and maybe _that_ was the problem he had with her.

Even with her sensory perception, Gaara was near impossible to read. His face was stony, his eyes held no trace of emotion. An overview of his major body systems didn’t return any clues; his pulse was normal, his chakra flow was neutral, his breathing was even, his muscles weren’t exactly relaxed but they were not poised to spring. She might as well have been taking inventory of a statue.

“Sorry for keeping you. I wasn’t sure if you would want to discuss this in front of the others,” Gaara began, and then he got straight to the point, which Karin appreciated, “I’ve heard you are capable of the Mind’s Eye of Kagura jutsu, meaning that you are able to find and track chakra over large distances.”

Her worry receded as soon as she understood what Gaara was getting at. She felt stupid for not having thought of it sooner. She could try and locate Sasuke’s chakra signature, which might lead her to the clone or the real Sasuke.

She started to focus her mind’s eye to seek out the familiar chakra signature when Gaara interrupted her.

“I don’t think it’s necessary to go and seek out Sasuke or his imitation. The impostor is likely going to come to us, based on how openly he interacted with a known terrorist group. Rather, I wanted to ask if you could keep an eye out and report if you sensed his chakra coming anywhere near the village.

“I admit I don’t know much about this jutsu, or how it works. If I am asking too much of you, you can always decline.”

With Sasuke’s chakra signature already in the forefront of her mind’s eye, Karin knew she would have no problem keeping surveillance around Suna. She agreed with Gaara, that the impostor’s actions indicated that he wanted to be noticed. If they pursued him, they would likely be walking right into some kind of trap. Catching him on their own turf would minimize risks.

“Also, I don’t expect this to go on much longer. If the fake Sasuke doesn’t return, and Kakashi is unable to produce any leads, I would not have you staying alert for his presence indefinitely. I can firmly tell you that if no new information is gathered in the next four days, we will regroup and decide what other options might be more relevant.”

Metaphorically speaking, Karin had already a placed a pin that passed through Sasuke’s chakra map and her mind’s eye in order to keep it open. A few days of constant vigilance wouldn’t be a problem, not that Karin felt she had any room to complain. Sunagakure had been gracious enough to take her in with no strings attached, and she felt obligated to pay back that kindness.

Additionally, there was no positive reason that she could imagine for why someone would be impersonating Sasuke in order to try and strike a deal with missing-nin. The war had ended years ago, but Karin was not ready to give up the hard-won peace that had been established. She might not have romantic feelings for Sasuke anymore, but she could respect what he had done for the entire shinobi world, and she didn’t want to let this mockery to continue on for long and tarnish his already checkered name. Besides that, she had herself to think about. There were so many possibilities stretched out in front of her right now, all within her reach like never before. She wasn’t going to let anything get in the way or push back her starting line yet again.

She hardened her voice to sound as committed as she felt. “Kazekage-sama, I gladly accept your request. If I notice anything out of the ordinary, I will report to you directly as soon as I can. If there is nothing to report, I will await your direction.”

Finally, Gaara’s stone face cracked just a little bit to reveal the tiniest smile. His chakra subtly grew warm in a way that reminded her of most Leaf shinobi she had met, but namely Naruto. The connection between the two made it easy for her to trust him, and she left his office feeling grounded and ready.

~~

Sakura stared at the bedroom ceiling of her Suna apartment. There wasn’t much to look at, considering the lights were off and the curtains closed. When she’d first moved in, she’d learned the hard way that unlike in Konoha, the activity in the Sand Village did not decrease when the sun went down. With the oppressive heat and damaging sun, many people of Suna waited until dark to run their errands, and many shops were open all night. Sakura had invested in those curtains within two days of moving in. She hadn’t even finished unpacking everything yet.

The small gap between where the two curtains met let the tiniest sliver of light stripe across the ceiling, which usually drew her attention as it was the only spot that wasn’t muted in shades of gray. She traced her gaze along its edges, trying to keep her mind focused on that one patch of illuminated ceiling. Too often, her eyes drifted into the shadows, and her mind fogged over into memories of her day.

This day had felt like ten days all in one, but there was one moment in particular she couldn’t get past. Her conversation with Karin at dinner kept coming back to her, as inescapable as the darkness of her bedroom. She felt guilty for asking about something that had turned out to be so much more serious than she ever would have imagined, and she felt dumb for being so unobservant. How could she not see that they were bite marks? She was a medical ninja!

She had been planning to talk to Karin more after their meeting with Gaara, but he’d asked her to stay after. Sakura didn’t know how long their meeting might last, so she’d just gone home. She wasn’t sure Karin would have wanted her waiting around anyway. Maybe it was for the best that they let the conversation drop for now.

Karin hadn’t seemed upset with her when she’d asked, but she obviously wasn’t okay with what had happened. Sakura couldn’t blame her. As the horrors had poured out of Karin’s mouth, Sakura felt like she was sinking in her own remorse, immobile and helpless. She wanted to comfort Karin in some way, but she didn’t know her that well, and she realized later, she was inexperienced in comforting others in general.

Sure, she’d tried to comfort Sasuke the night that he’d left the village—that had gone miserably. Naruto never let her try to comfort him, it was always the other way around. He was always trying to cheer her up, and even when there was something bothering him, he would try to keep her at a distance from his pain. He didn’t like to know that his struggles caused other people to be upset, even if it was only in empathy for him. So, she hadn’t really ever found herself trying to make him feel better.

Sakura couldn’t even recall a time where she’d comforted Ino. When they were kids, it was always Ino who was trying to turn things around and make her feel better about herself. Ino stood up to the bullies to make her smile. By the time they were friends again, the war was impending and there wasn’t time for that. After the war, well, Ino had mourned the loss of her father, but...it became more of a clan affair with the Nara and Akimachi clans who had also suffered losses.

Maybe Sakura was just an overall shitty friend who never put enough effort into any of her relationships with others. She turned to her side, feeling the slice of light burning at the corner of her eye. Regardless of the reason, the fact was that she was unskilled at being a soothing presence. When Karin opened up to her, she hadn’t known the right words to say. She’d only had her honest reactions and the tears that slipped down her cheeks as Karin’s hurt resonated in her chest.

Sure, Sakura knew there were terrible things that happened in the world. She knew that shinobi had it hard, that children of shinobi sometimes had rough upbringings. She knew of war torn countries and the orphans that were left behind, she knew that many children were treated with a level of unfairness that no one ever deserved. Her knowledge of those things was part of the reason she had started the mental health revitalization initiative in Konoha in the first place!

It was another thing entirely to hear the experience directly. Especially from someone whom she was beginning to care about. Though, if she were being completely truthful with herself, she wasn’t sure it was accurate to say that she was only beginning to care about Karin. They hadn’t seen each other after the war had ended, but Sakura couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d starting caring about the other kunoichi the moment she’d first healed her. There was some connection between them, she’d felt it then, and she’d felt it when their eyes had met in the ramen shop when Karin arrived in Suna.

So Sakura hadn’t known what to say. ‘I’m sorry that happened to you,’ or ‘You didn’t deserve that,’ or even, ‘You are so strong for making it past all that,’ didn’t seem to quite cut it. ‘What assholes!’ or ‘Those fucking bastards,’ didn’t erase the years of torment that had been sowed. She couldn’t even promise to protect Karin from here on out because she didn’t want to imply that Karin couldn’t take care of herself. She knew how demoralizing it felt every time someone assumed she was too weak or too sensitive or delicate or whatever.

She was surprised when Karin took her hand from across the table and held it. With their hands joined together and both of their tears flowing, Sakura hoped that she could take some of the weight off Karin’s shoulders. Although she hadn’t known what to do or say, she made a silent promise to herself.

All her life, Karin had been used and taken advantage of for her unique healing abilities. People helped themselves to bite into her skin without concern for how it affected her. Sakura swore to herself that she would never, ever bite Karin to suck out her healing chakra.

Even though the nations were at peace, there were always dangers in the shinobi world. The current situation with the Sasuke impostor was a perfect example. If that somehow ended up in a fight, and Sakura ended up injured with only Karin around to help her...not even then. She was Sakura of the Hundred Healings Mark! If anyone was going to be doing any healing, it would be her!

She flipped to her other side, still unable to sleep, and another thought occurred to her. When Sakura and Ino had asked her about working in the hospital, Karin had specifically requested not to work as a medi-nin. Sakura hadn’t thought anything of it and assumed Karin had found lab work to be something she was really interested in doing when she had been running experiments for Orochimaru. But now, _damn it_ , Sakura felt so stupid! Of course Karin wouldn’t want to be reliving all those memories that she carried around in her skin every day.

This brought up another point, and Sakura almost sat up when she thought of it. Karin had said that she didn’t remember much about her mother, but she knew her mother hadn’t taught her about their healing ability. Karin had only learned about it firsthand, when the doctors had forced the other patients to bite her. But...but what if there was another way? What if there was some way to hone her chakra that she and her mother had never been taught? What if there were missing steps of a ninjutsu that would eliminate the biting entirely? What if that step greatly improved the efficiency of the healing?

Sakura groaned and rolled onto her back, pulling her pillow over her face. Her mind was racing now, and she was certainly going to get no sleep tonight. She was already getting ahead of herself, planning to visit Suna’s library the next day to check out any books and scrolls on ninjutsu creation and kekkei genkai. With those, she might be able to piece together something…

Though, maybe she should ask Karin about this first.

Of course, if she didn’t get any rest, she was going to be too tired to do much of anything useful tomorrow!

She tried to put all of those thoughts on hold for the moment. Yes, she would have plenty of time to overthink about this tomorrow. For tonight though…

She still couldn’t get her mind of Karin, but she was able to settle into another piece of information she’d learned about Karin that didn’t twine her heartstrings through her ribs.

Karin had mentioned that when she was training with Orochimaru, he had often encouraged her to learn about sealing jutsu. When she’d finally asked why he pushed the topic so much, he revealed that she was of the Uzumaki—a clan known for their powerful fuuinjutsu.

_An Uzumaki, huh_. This made Sakura smile. Even now, as she fought with herself to try and relax, the thought conjured a warm soft melted honey feeling in her core. Karin Uzumaki, somehow probably distantly related to Naruto Uzumaki. She liked knowing that Karin was related to her teammate, who also happened to be one of her best friends. She wondered if Karin had made the connection, and if she did, what she thought of that. She wondered how Naruto would react.

She pulled the pillow away from her face and hugged it against her chest. She let her eyes wander back up to the thin bright streak across her ceiling. Her mind stayed in between the lines this time, lazily drifting between some of the better moments of the day.

Uzumaki Karin.

They’d kind of gone on a date. Maybe Sakura could actually ask her on another one, for real this time.

No more activity from the Sasuke impostor, that was probably good news.

The IT department had finally fixed the malfunctioning computers in the pharmacy.

There was a sale on gyoza ingredients.

Karin.

Uzumaki _Karin_.


	11. Chapter 11

There was no update on the Sasuke situation in the next two days. Gaara had set a tentative meeting with the four of them for the fourth day to determine what their next actions should be. Ino couldn’t wait that long. She’d corralled them all together on the second day for an impromptu meeting during their lunch break.

“I just have a bad feeling about it. Why would this person so brazenly engage with a group that was almost certainly going to be watched and then just disappear?”

She was tearing up the paper napkin on the table in front of her, her hands mimicking the apprehension in her voice.

Karin had to agree with her. Since she’d started monitoring the village after her meeting with Gaara, she had not once felt Sasuke’s chakra signature anywhere near Suna’s perimeter. Sometimes, when she had a spare moment, she would stretch her consciousness as far out as the Demon Desert, and still she had found nothing. There had not even been a significant disturbance in the chakra of the villagers moving in and out of the city on a daily basis. She could only assume that the clone had moved onto another village, but ostensibly Gaara had not received word from any of the other Kage regarding the matter either.

It was never a good sign when the enemy went dark. Too much could happen when no one was looking.

“I’ve been thinking about it too, and about how someone could have replicated his chakra signature so convincingly, and I think I have a theory—”

Sakura was cut off by the arrival of Sai, who was arriving late.

“Nice of you to finally join us,” Ino drawled, but the blush on her cheeks and the warmth in her tone revealed that she wouldn’t hold it against him.

“Ah, you know. If there’s one thing you can count on Team 7 for, it’s tardiness.”

“Really? That’s funny, because Sakura had no issue showing up on time.”

Sai turned to Sakura with a huge insincere grin on his face. “That’s because she’s already ugly, she can’t afford to be late too.”

Karin darted her eyes from Sai to Sakura, who didn’t seem phased in the slightest.

“Shut up, dickless bastard,” she muttered, waving her hand at him like he was nothing more than an annoying housefly.

They both shared a laugh, and Karin found herself thoroughly confused by the interaction. It reminded her a little bit of how she’d been with Suigetsu, though their relationship had never progressed past insulting each other. She almost caught herself wondering how he was doing.

_Probably trying to master some jutsu to turn himself into a sword or something, that weirdo._

“Anyway, like I was _saying_ ,” Sakura continued, sending a pointed look at Sai who did not appear apologetic in any way, “I think I’ve figured out how they copied Sasuke’s chakra signature, and if I’m right, this method could also be used to create a synthetic tailed-beast cloak.”

Sai’s expression faded into something more serious. The three of them waited for Sakura’s explanation.

Karin had her own suspicions about how a chakra signature could be duplicated, but she wanted to know Sakura’s idea first. Her own hypothesis seemed a little far-fetched, and she didn’t know enough about the jutsu of her speculation to feel confident in her assumptions.

After all, if the Sasuke lookalike had met with the missing-nin outside of Suna only a couple of weeks ago, she would have been in the area, and she should have been able to sense his chakra, just as she had passively recognized Sakura’s chakra. From what Gaara had mentioned, Sasuke hadn’t been concerned with stealth, so even if the meeting had been somewhat obscured, there should have been no way for her to miss him on his way coming or going. _Which meant..._

“Chakra moves through every cell of the body through a unique network. By moving through that network, chakra emanates from the body in patterns that we come to know as a ‘signature.’

“Most clone jutsu, like shadow clones or sand clones or water clones, produce lookalikes with very basic chakra networks. The chakra in these clones is used only to keep the illusion stable, so the network that is formed is simple. Because there are no organs or other structures that require or impede the chakra, the networks that form can be easily distinguished from that of a living creature. The purpose of clone jutsu is mostly focused on immediate outward appearance, so the complexity of chakra network development isn’t necessary.

“Similarly, it is possible to henge yourself into a clone of someone else. Though, again, the purpose of henge is to deceive the naked eye, and so the chakra network of the person casting the jutsu would remain unchanged. Someone with sensory perception or doujutsu would easily be able to see through the transformation.

“So, how could someone go about creating an identical chakra signature with a clone jutsu or a henge?

“In my opinion, it would be much harder to develop a henge. Ultimately, the caster would not be able to change their own chakra signature, only mask it with an illusory chakra network. However, it seems like this method would still run the risk of exposure via doujutsu.

“Theoretically, it could be possible to create a clone with an identical chakra signature. As I already mentioned, a person’s body always has chakra running through it. Think of it as similar to the way that blood passes through the body. Even if all the blood was somehow removed, the veins and arteries and and other components of the circulatory system would still be there, mapping the path that blood travels.

“We know that chakra vessels will still remain, even after chakra is depleted. My assumption is that if someone were to collect enough dead skin cells or hair from a subject, they might be able to create a rough approximation of how the chakra pathways flowed in that subject’s body.

“Now, almost all shinobi saw Sasuke fight during the war. And, most shinobi know how he fought Naruto at the Valley of the End after Madara was defeated, even though that information was supposed to be kept secret.

“Considering the vigorous fighting that took place, it’s likely that Sasuke shed plenty of skin and hair in those areas. If someone had gone and collected enough, I think it’s possible they used those samples to create a clone with a very similar chakra signature to him.

“Right now, the only people who saw the Sasuke impostor were Gaara-san and some Sand ANBU. Of those shinobi, probably only Gaara-san was familiar with Sasuke’s chakra signature. Gaara-san and Sasuke weren’t around each other that often, so it could be the case that there were slight inconsistencies in the clone’s chakra signature that Gaara-san overlooked.”

Sakura finally came to the end of her explanation and she reached for the glass of water on the table in front of her. Her eyes sought a reaction to her logic as they darted among the three silent shinobi surrounding her.

Karin felt light-headed, and when Sakura’s eyes met hers, she felt her body sway. Clearly Sakura had put a lot of time and effort into thinking about the situation, and by the stunned expressions on Ino and Sai’s faces, they thought so as well.

A half formed apology twisted its way up her throat. She’d spent the past two days passively monitoring the village, but that hardly seemed like much in comparison. She’d dropped the ball, and that was unforgivable for a ninja. She could think of a dozen reasons off the top of her head why a perfect imitation of Sasuke would be a massive threat to the peace between the five nations, but she couldn’t think of a single reason why she hadn’t been taking the situation more seriously.

Just yesterday she’d been in Sakura’s office, returning a collection of cleaned bento boxes that she’d been accumulating since Sakura had started making her lunch every day. She’d noticed a stack of books on the desk that hadn’t been there before, each of them about chakra manipulation and developing new jutsu. Sakura had gone to the library to do research!

Meanwhile Karin…

She hadn’t put any effort in at all. Her own theory was a joke in comparison. She should have tried harder. She should have pushed her sensory perimeter further. If Sakura was this diligent, Karin would have to make herself better to match her. With a familiar fire of frustration in her belly, Karin vowed to work harder.

She tapped into her mind’s eye and expanded the scope of her perception right away, though this caused her to miss Sakura and Sai discussing how the theory could apply to the ninja with the synthetic tailed beast cloaks that he had been investigating. When her new range had stabilized enough for her to join back into the conversation, the male shinobi seemed unusually animated.

“I really think this could be the key. I’d like to tell Kakashi-sama right away,” Sai was saying, his chakra surging strong behind each of his words.

“We should tell Gaara-sama too, but I’m sure he’d understand if you didn’t join us for that,” Ino replied.

“Though maybe I should wait, in case there is something he would like me to transmit to Kakashi-sama as well. I’d rather cut down on all of these trips back and forth between Suna and Konoha.”

Even Sakura’s face softened with sympathy at that remark.

“Well, you know. Anything that has to do with Sasuke is considered super top-secret sensitive information to the Kage,” Sakura sighed. “But considering all that’s happened, I can’t really blame them.”

Karin tensed. _All that’s happened?_ Like his time with Orochimaru, and later, Team Taka. Both things which Karin was also a part of?

She’d shared some of her past with Sakura, but not all of it. Not in detail. Would Sakura think differently of her if she knew? Or did she already assume the worst?

Karin’s stomach turned, and she wished she hadn’t already ordered lunch. With how mad she was at herself, and now with this disgust, her appetite had dwindled to nothing.

“That bastard has been nothing but trouble for me since I joined Team 7,” Sai said. The smile on his face indicated that he was joking, and Sakura and Ino laughed.

Karin’s stomach gurgled.

~~

After lunch, Ino and Sai split off. Ino to tell Gaara of Sakura’s theory and of Sai’s departure, and Sai to once again head off to Konoha. Karin and Sakura walked back to the hospital together, though Sakura apparently decided to take the most roundabout way back possible. Karin was too nauseated to even appreciate the extra time together. All she wanted to do was power through the rest of work, go home, and wallow in her failures as a shinobi. She didn’t really want Sakura to witness any of that, and she knew she already wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding her feelings—which, by the way, was just another sign that she was unfit to be a ninja.

“You okay?” Sakura asked.

Karin realized that it was probably weird that she hadn’t said anything since they’d left the restaurant. She snapped her vision back into focus and realized that they had already been down this block before. Had Sakura been leading her in circles without her noticing? She really was out of it, if that were the case…

“Yeah, no problem,” Karin declared in her mock-tough voice.

Sakura tilted her head and studied Karin’s face. Karin tried to keep her eyes forward, but Sakura’s scrutiny was making her sweat. She moved her glasses a little farther from her face in order to prevent them steaming up, and Sakura didn’t miss the significance.

She raised an eyebrow and gave Karin a knowing look, like she’d caught Karin red-handed.

“Oh really?” she asked, her voice thick with disbelief.

Karin was unsure how to proceed, and she made the mistake of giving in to her desire to catch Sakura’s gaze. Cool mint eyes brought her guard tumbling down.

“Just thinking about...what you said about Sasuke.”

Sakura froze.

“I mean, it’s true, what you said. The stuff about all the Kage being super paranoid about him because of his past. I just...” Karin took a deep breath. “I was there with him for a lot of that. I’ve done some awful shit too.”

Whatever Sakura had been expecting her to say, that hadn’t been it. Karin watched the medical ninja melt into a more relaxed stance. Her shoulders loosened and her neck relaxed. Her eyes flitted over Karin’s face, crinkling at the corners with kindness as her lips turned up in a faint smile. Then she cast her eyes down the path they’d walked at least twice already and took a shallow breath.

“All shinobi have done things they’re not proud of. I don’t claim to know everything you’ve done, though I do know some details from Sasuke’s trial. I know there is a lot of context I’m missing, and if you want to tell me, I’ll listen.”

Unconsciously, Karin’s mind’s eye began to shrink the perimeter of Suna that she was passively monitoring. If she had to guess what Sakura could say to make her feel better, she couldn’t. Regardless, she found herself holding her breath in anticipation.

“Sasuke’s changed a lot over the years, I know that. I’ve seen it. Hell, I’ve changed a lot. And, I bet you have too. The person you are now...that’s who I’m interested in knowing more about. Even if the person you are now was formed from the person you were then.”

Sakura’s eyes darted back to Karin’s, wide and suddenly almost shy. “I-Is that okay?”

Karin felt her heart seize. Her stomach was still all kinds of topsy-turvy, but she couldn’t deny the soothing effect of the words.

She pushed her hair behind her ear, out of her face, and looked down at the dusty Suna road.

“You’re fucking awesome, you know?” She muttered it, softly, embarrassed.

Karin felt Sakura’s heartbeat speed up at the compliment, and that brought a whole new wave of calm over her. She smiled at the ground as Sakura hastily tried to deny the praise and then changed the subject to something completely unrelated, an amusing story about an elderly patient of hers.

It was too soon when they reached the hospital’s grounds. Before going through the main entrance, Sakura stopped just outside the front door, and after a second of indecision, she wrapped her arms around Karin in a firm hug.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, okay?”

Before Karin could even begin to form a response, Sakura dropped a kiss onto her cheek and pulled away. Her cheeks were pink, but her smile was so bright that it annihilated any chance of Karin being able to answer coherently.

The glow in her body stayed with her for the rest of the afternoon like a warm tan. She accidentally dropped two beakers in the lab, and Mikoshi made some kind of sly remark, but she didn’t care. Sakura had reminded her of something that she had known since she’d set off on her own over a year ago, and she wasn’t going to lose track of it again.

~~

At the end of her shift, Sakura was called into an emergency surgery, and by the time she got out, she was ready to collapse. She snagged a container of instant ramen that she kept in her desk for situations like this, her books from the library that she’d checked out earlier in the morning—yesterday morning, now—and plodded back home. Her eyes barely stayed open, but her feet knew the way, and her mind wasn’t quite ready to switch off. She was already running through the list of tasks she would need to start working on tomorrow: preparing next week’s shift schedule, performing two chakra transplants, reevaluating the ratio of patients in C wing and D wing, attending a teleconference with a representative from Iwa...checking in on her regular patients...next week was Amai’s birthday, and she should probably be planning something for him…

Her apartment was cold and dark, and the door echoed as she pushed it open and stumbled inside. The first few nights she’d come home after dark, she’d been a little nervous. Even though she knew her fears were ridiculous since she was a kunoichi who could easily defend herself against a petty home invader, she had never lived alone before, and the vast nothingness that she was returning home to left her feeling disconcerted. Over time her unease had faded away, and on some occasions she even forgot to lock the door behind her.

Tonight she didn’t forget, even though she was bone tired and her thoughts had dwindled to just a dull rumbling in her ears. She felt like she wouldn’t stay conscious enough to make it through the instant ramen, so she dumped the package along with her stack of books on her desk next to a letter from Naruto that she had been meaning to read for the past few days.

The childish scrawl of his writing caught her eye— _seriously, he was how old and still wrote like a kindergartener?—_ and she smiled in spite of herself as she pulled off her hip pouch and any other essentials that would be dangerous to sleep in. She was too tired to change into her sleep clothes, and it wasn’t as if she hadn’t slept in her work clothes before.

She flopped onto her bed, the letter still on her mind because she remembered that Naruto was due for a visit soon, and her level of exhaustion and the dip in her consciousness brought his chakra signature to the forefront of her mind. _Odd_ , she thought, as her eyes fell shut, that she could almost feel it in the room with her and that it wasn’t his normal chakra pattern but the pattern he took on when channeling the cloak of the nine-tails. Before she could find anything wrong with that, there was a sharp piercing in her neck, and she switched off like a light.

The next time she awoke, she felt like she was trapped underwater. There was a heaviness all over her body, her movements were slow, and her vision wasn’t tracking properly. She struggled to sit up and figured out that her wrists were bound behind her back. Rolling to her side, she saw that her ankles were also tied together.

Muted fear bled into her mind as her eyes darted around the unfamiliar room, which was completely empty. She had no idea where she was or how long she’d been unconscious. Even the door to the room was nondescript, and when she tried to sense any other chakra presence around her, she discovered that her own chakra flow was stuttering and inconsistent.

Her mouth had been left unbound, and she tried to reason whether it was to her advantage to stay silent or to yell out, but the thick weight around her skull kept her unfocused. She tried to grip any fleeting thought, any idea of what to do, but it felt like her brain was somewhere far away from her body.

She closed her eyes, then bit her lip hard enough to draw blood.

_Kai!_

It wasn’t a genjutsu. She hadn’t thought it was, but she tried anyway. She opened her eyes to see the same gray cinderblock walls and the same bare concrete floor. Questions like _why?_ and _who?_ finally occurred to her, though nothing about her blank surroundings inspired any ideas. She looked down at her feet again and inspected the binding, trying to make out what material it was made from, trying to work out how she could escape.

She spat on the floor and shimmied her ankles around trying to find some kind of give to the binding. If she was at full strength she knew she could probably brute-force her way out.

Unfortunately, the weakness of her muscles was throwing her off. Her body wasn’t cooperating in the way it normally did, not even when she was drained from a grueling mission. _Poison?_ She finally remembered the feeling of Naruto’s Kyuubi chakra right before she’d gone dark.

_Could this have to do with the synthetic tailed beast cloaks that Sai had been investigating? With the fake Sasuke?_

As if to answer her thoughts, she felt a familiar sear of chakra coming towards her like a flame to a pyre. As quickly as she could, she brought her head up and looked towards the door to analyze her captor.

“Sakura,” he said coolly, a practiced smirk barely visible on his face.

He looked just like he had the day he’d left Konoha. Self-assured, calculating, dispassionate. But there was something about him that was ever so slightly off that made shivers of dread crawl up her spine like spiders. Though, the real giveaway was that he’d never looked at her with such predatory interest before.

“Sasuke,” she returned, and she was almost thankful for the muted effect plaguing her. She spoke in a tone that sounded much more calm than she felt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unrelated--
> 
> So I quit my job and started a new one and it was so scary, oh man, I've never quit a job before and for weeks I was wondering if I was doing the right thing and even a few days after I started my new job I was still so upset and unsure. But then at the end of the week, one of my old coworkers (who put in his two week notice one week after I put in mine, btw, for perspective on how awful it was there) said that everything was basically going down in flames and the people who caused us to leave were being even more horrible than before, and I was like...ah, I made the right choice after all. Even though my new job may be something I'm not familiar with at all and it might take time and be difficult in different ways than I was used to, and even though change is hard and scares me, this is good. I did the right thing.
> 
> So yeah anyway I missed posting last week because I was busy panicking about my first day at my new job! And now that my first week is over, I feel better.
> 
> Even more unrelated--"you write like a kindergartener" is something one of my friends told me when he saw that I wrote without using the proper stroke order (which is VERY important in Japanese) lol ;')


	12. Chapter 12

From behind the Sasuke imitator stepped a man Sakura had never seen before.

“Haruno Sakura,” he greeted, and she didn’t recognize his voice either.

As he came closer to her, she checked to see if there was anyone behind him, but he had closed the door after he’d entered the room, and now it was just the three of them.

“What do you want?” she growled.

It wasn’t a good sign that he knew her, but she had no idea who he was. Though she could guess that he was involved with the synthetic tailed-beast chakra cloaks, and the proof that he was associated with the fake Sasuke was standing in front of her, she hadn’t thought as far as to what this person’s motives might be.

The unknown man squatted down in front of her, tilting her face up to look her in the eye. Despite her body’s weakness, she didn’t break his stare. He looked smug, and she supposed he had some right to be, considering this part of his plan had been a success.

“I want the real deal.”

He flicked his eyes to the Sasuke-clone standing next to him, then let go of her chin. Without the support, her head knocked against the ground which did nothing to help the fuzziness of her grasp on the situation.

“And what the hell do I have to do with that? I can’t make your clone an exact replica of Sasuke,” she spat. Eyeing the feet of the clone, she focused on the swirls of chakra flowing through its body. On closer inspection, there were subtle differences between the clone and the real Sasuke. “Besides, most people don’t know him well enough to be able to detect such slight differences anyway. If I’m not mistaken, the group of missing-nin couldn’t tell the difference.”

The man stood up, hummed thoughtfully, and began pacing the room. “Ah, so you heard about that.”

As he walked the length of the room, Sakura tried to think of her next moves. Neither he nor the Sasuke-clone had hurt her, though they had definitely injected her with some kind of debilitating drug. They seemed to need her for something, and the man in front of her had an air about him like the cat that ate the canary. In his mind, he’d already won, and she hoped to use that overconfidence to spill as many details as she needed to know to get herself free of this mess.

“Yes, I heard that there was a Sasuke impostor brazenly strutting around with missing-nin arms dealers trying to strike some kind of deal, and when it went south, he killed them all. Not a very discreet method to handle that kind of falling out, which indicates you wanted the attention.”

He stopped and turned on his heel so that he was facing her again, though from her angle, she couldn’t see his face.

“Well of course,” he confirmed. His tone seemed pleased, like he was eager to explain the genius behind his plan.

“No matter how close your clone’s chakra signature is to the real Sasuke, no one who knew more than a scrap about him would know that he would never act like that,” she added, trying to piece everything together.

Unless their goal was to target people who didn’t know Sasuke that well. To cause whispers and rumors to form, to damage his reputation. To draw him out?

“You thought you could bait Sasuke into coming after the fake,” Sakura reasoned, “And when he didn’t come...”

“And when he didn’t come, I switched the bait.”

The thought of being used as bait infuriated her, and she felt a surge of strength pulse through her limbs, but she remained still. It was in her benefit to wait as long as possible so that hopefully her body would metabolize whatever drug they had put in her system, then she could surprise them with her power. She also wanted to wring as much information from this person as possible.

“I hate to tell you this, but you picked the wrong member of Team 7 if you wanted to draw out Sasuke.”

She was only half serious, but the words were still bitter in her mouth. Though, it was obvious to everyone that Sasuke and Naruto had a much stronger friendship than Sasuke and her. Part of Sakura was also annoyed that this man probably thought she was a much easier target to capture than the last remaining jinchuuriki. And, as unreasonable as it was, another part of her was annoyed that he was right.

“Oh, but that’s why the timing of this worked out so well. I happen to know a certain loudmouthed brat is already en route to Suna.”

Sakura froze. That wasn’t good. If she wasn’t the bait, then…

“While Suna looks for you, we’ll engage with the fox-brat, and if all of that doesn’t do the trick, I’ll send a friend to pay a visit to Konoha and stir up some trouble there.”

He was leaving out something. She wasn’t a Suna nin, they wouldn’t be that distracted if she went missing. News of her disappearance might make its way to Sasuke, but it was far more likely that engaging in a fight with Naruto and Konoha would entice Sasuke to show himself.

_So what did they need her for?_

The man grinned, ostensibly sensing her rising panic.

“With our synthetic tailed-beast chakra cloaks, we’ll be able to subdue and capture Sasuke. We will be able to take his eyes and harvest his power. But before that...”

_If she wasn’t the bait, then she..._

“We want to make sure his eyes are as powerful as can be.”

She was the sacrifice.

~~

Karin had the next two days off, which she was determined to make the most of. Her theory for how the Sasuke impostor had come and gone from the area surrounding the village may have been proven unlikely, but that didn’t mean her idea had been a waste. She made her way to Suna’s library early the next morning to pore over any books regarding summoning and teleportation jutsu.

Chances were that if someone else hadn’t already had the same idea as her now, there would be a time in the future when someone did. Being that the use of such a jutsu would be a huge hole in any village’s security, she wanted to figure out if the mechanisms she had in mind for such a technique were even possible.

Before she knew it, the library was closing for the day, and she was ushered out the front door with a satchel of books heavy enough to wield as a weapon. The last time she had been so engrossed in research had been under Kabuto’s direction, and he had never let her explore her own interests as they were to focus on only what was pertinent to achieving Orochimaru’s goals.

Shifting the bag from one shoulder to the other, she was surprised to find the memory pleasant. Not that she had been all that dedicated to pursuing Orochimaru’s research interests, but that she still carried the same drive to learn, ask questions, and seek answers that had kept her sane back then. In a way, it was comforting to think that enthusiasm for knowledge was a core part of her.

As she approached her apartment, she saw Amai returning home from his shift at the hospital. Her good mood compelled her to call out to him.

“Hey, Amai!”

The Kumo nin turned his head to look at her. Faint recognition flickered in his eyes as he came towards her. They stopped in front of the entrance to the complex, out of the way of the doors.

“Hi...Karin-san, right?”

Karin set her bundle of books on the ground at her feet and rubbed the back of her neck nervously. She felt a little bad for addressing him so casually out of the blue like that, but it was too late now.

“Yeah, newest member of the Lab Rotation. Well, until whenever Ruka gets here from Kiri...” she trailed off, into small jittery laughter.

Thankfully, Amai seemed much more at ease being friendly. He gave her a warm smile, disarming enough that Karin wondered if he had ever considered switching from the medical unit to the psych unit.

“Ah, so you’re under Oyone-san. She can be hard to read, but she really knows her stuff. I’ve never asked her a question that she wasn’t able to answer. I’m sure there’s a lot you can learn from her.”

Karin dipped her head, feeling humbled by his welcoming attitude.

“I guess you know everyone pretty well then?” she asked, curious. As far as she had experienced, her job didn’t really overlap much with the medical or psych sides of things, meaning that she wasn’t too familiar with the employees outside of her own unit.

Amai’s head tilted back slightly as he laughed. “I guess you could say that. But don’t worry, you’ll come to know everyone too. I joined the Rotation when the project was just taking off in Konoha, so I got to travel with everyone to Suna. I wouldn’t say we bonded exactly, but you get to know people a lot better when you’re kind of stuck in close quarters for a while.”

He shook his head and rolled his eyes at whatever memory he was reliving. “Anyway, when we move on to Iwa, you’ll see what I mean.”

They chatted a few minutes more before Amai said he had to start making dinner. Before they went to their separate apartments, he mentioned that he played cards with Mikoshi and Tsuchibachi on the weekends, and he invited Karin to join them.

Karin hadn’t gone into the conversation hoping for any outcome in particular, but she left it feeling like she’d won.

~~

Sakura didn’t know exactly when Naruto was set to arrive, and she was annoyed with herself that she hadn’t read his letter sooner. In the day that followed her abduction, she wasn’t able to learn much, only that the man whom she hadn’t known was called Kido and was partnered with a former medi-nin from Suna, Magire, who had defected sometime after the war. She also couldn’t keep much of a grasp on how much time was passing, since Magire would come around every so often to inject her with more drugs.

Despite her conditions, she didn’t feel like her life was at risk just yet, so she resisted trying to escape. She figured that if she released her Hundred Healings Mark, her metabolism would probably burn up whatever drugs they were putting into her, and she would be able to get the upper hand.

The Sasuke clone, now that she’d had more time to study him, didn’t seem all that strong. Though he may have had the same chakra signature as the real Sasuke, his chakra reserves were critically deficient. He likely wouldn’t be able to perform much ninjutsu without using up his supply, and it also seemed unlikely that he would be able to sustain a genjutsu. Kido and Magire seemed far more lethal, but since they were real shinobi, they were much harder to read and didn’t spend much time in the hideout.

She had discovered a lot about their plans, and she wondered for how much longer it would be advantageous to wait. If word of her disappearance got out, that might bring Naruto to Suna faster, but would her captors want the jinchuuriki _and_ forces from Suna hunting around from her? It seemed more beneficial if they were to ambush Naruto sometime before he reached the village, especially considering how closely he was tied to the Kazekage.

Other than the gray room she never left, she had no idea where she was located. When the others were in the hideout, she could feel them walking through hallways to the sides of the room, and she noticed they left the hideout by going up—probably out from underground. She wasn’t too familiar with Wind Country to have a real guess where would be a good base for their operation, but she thought she remembered that there was an old Akatsuki hideout to the southwest of Suna.

If that were the case though, they were fairly far away from the village. Depending on how long she stayed without food—they allowed her water—if she managed to escape, there would be a lot of ground to cover to get back to civilization. Again, she had faith in her Hundred Healings Seal to sustain her, but she knew her expectations were beginning to pile up. She couldn’t afford to be impractical.

~~

The next day, the library was closed. Karin spent most of her morning in her room, scouring the books she’d checked out for information, and drawing pages of pages of summoning seals. Orochimaru had once told her that she had a natural talent for sealing jutsu. Summoning seemed like it should go hand in hand with sealing, but she was having trouble materializing the technique she wanted to do. She regretted not seeking out more books on teleportation jutsu.

There was a sea of crumpled paper she had to wade through to get to her door when she heard the knocking.

A Sand ANBU stood at her door, and she felt adrenaline slipping into her veins as she guessed what his presence meant. The Kazekage had already scheduled a meeting with the four of them for that afternoon, so an early summons signaled that something had happened.

She rushed around her apartment to get her essential gear, then followed the ANBU to Gaara’s office, where Sai and Ino were already assembled.

Karin already knew that Sai and Gaara would give nothing away, so she focused on Ino. From her half-second evaluation of the kunoichi’s stilted chakra and tense shoulders, she knew the news wasn’t good. From a whole second of evaluation, she noticed that Ino’s hair was pulled into a high ponytail and her makeup was gone. She was ready for action.

“Sakura-san is missing,” Gaara stated without preface. “She didn’t turn up to work yesterday, though it went unnoticed as she had been working late the day before. When she didn’t show up today though, her absence was reported. From the entrance and departure logs of the village, we confirmed that Sakura-san did not officially leave Suna. ANBU searched her apartment and found no signs of struggle, however...”

He and Sai shared a look.

“There were traces of Uchiha Sasuke found on site.”

“That’s impossible!” Karin shouted, “I would have noticed if his chakra signal were anywhere near the village, and I haven’t.”

Gaara regarded her calmly. “Considering there was no other evidence of her abduction other than some hair and skin samples, it would appear that the evidence was planted by someone else, likely the person who created the impostor Sasuke in the first place. We already know the leader of this scheme has been trying to defame Sasuke.”

Karin calmed a little, but not by much. Her heartbeat was loud and hot in her ears.

“I can find her! They won’t have gone out of range of my Kagura Shingan—”

“Yes,” Gaara agreed, his voice hardening. He wanted her to calm down, and it did the trick.

Her shinobi instincts kicked in full force. She couldn’t just storm into the situation all hot-headed and expect things to fall into place. Revenge was a dish best served cold, and she would have to be calm and calculating. After all, she wasn’t a Konoha shinobi with righteous luck on her side.

Gaara nodded to Sai.

“Kakashi-sama officially assigned Sakura, Ino, and me a mission to investigate the synthetic-tailed beast cloaks and the appearance of the fake Sasuke. Since she is gone, we can assume she has been taken, and we will go after her.”

Karin had almost forgotten that these things had official avenues that had to be taken. Her impatience to leave was really itching against her years of indoctrination to follow those paths though.

“Of course I have the ANBU on the lookout, but I think you three will be a much more effective team. None of you are Suna shinobi, so I can’t officially tell you what to do—”

“I’ll get going as soon as you let us out of here,” Karin snapped, uncaring that she was being rude to the Kazekage.

Ino glanced at her with some trepidation, and with much effort, Karin strained to dial herself down. She knew that a team would be most effective for Sakura’s rescue. If her teammates thought she was a reckless hothead who couldn’t control herself, they wouldn’t trust her, and that would compromise the mission. They needed to all focus on the task at hand and not be distracted trying to plan ahead for some unpredictable action of a fellow team member.

Karin heaved a big sigh, like she was releasing all of her anger in one big exhale. Though it was mostly for show, she could admit that it did calm her down a little.

“Sorry,” she apologized, bowing slightly, “Please. What is the plan?”

Gaara didn’t waste any time, and the trio were out of his office minutes later. Karin had been able to pinpoint Sakura’s chakra signature with ease, though it was outside of Suna, and much farther than she would have expected. In the general area where Sakura was being held, she also sensed an unknown male shinobi and the impostor Sasuke. His chakra pattern was just different enough that she might have only thought it was coincidentally similar to Sasuke’s had she not known of the faker’s existence.

She led them over the barren sand plains of Wind Country with a brutal pace. Internally, she was _pissed_. At herself for not specifically seeking out Sasuke’s chakra signature as she had done for Sakura’s. At whoever was behind all of this for daring to mess with her friend, tarnish a former friend’s name, and disrupt the most peaceful period of her life that she could remember. It was unforgivable, and the adamantine chains inside her were primed and waiting for their next target.

The scars dotting her skin tingled as she channeled all of her rage into chakra production. They were coming upon the area where Sakura was being detained. Her hair felt like it was bristling from her scalp. Behind her, she could feel the tension in Leaf shinobi, all set for combat.

In the span of her next two breaths, there was a violent wave of energy that crashed down upon her, rolling through every nerve in her body like a seizure. The force came upon her so quickly that she instinctively dropped to a crouch on the ground, as there was no cover in the wide desert flat.

Her teammates skidded to a halt several paces in front of her, and by the time they turned around, she was able to distinguish that the feeling she encountered wasn’t from an assault but from a massive release of chakra. She turned in the direction it came from, back towards Suna, still farther back than that. Even without focusing her mind’s eye, the oppressive concussion of Kyuubi’s chakra was unmistakable.

“What the hell?” Ino cried, marching her way to where Karin was.

Karin closed her eyes, too many thoughts racing in her head.

_Was it Naruto or was it someone using a synthetic tailed-beast chakra cloak? Could the cloak be that strong? If it actually was Naruto, what was happening that he felt the need to draw upon that much of Kyuubi’s power?_

When Karin opened her eyes, she expected to see the face of an angry Yamanaka who demanded to know why their party had abruptly stopped. But, to her surprise, when she cast her gaze on the blonde kunoichi, the woman was also staring in the direction of Suna.

_Right. The Yamanaka clan were all sensory ninja too. So Ino also felt it…_

“What the hell was that? Naruto?”

Sai flickered to where the two kunoichi were gathered, unaware of what had caught their attention.

“What is it?”

Ino glanced at Karin with eyes full of confusion. She bit her lip and turned to Sai. The dread written all over her face had an instant effect on him, causing his chakra flow to spike.

“Nothing good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will they continue on to find Sakura? Will they turn around to see what Naruto is reacting to? >:3


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon typical blood and violence in this one.

The Sasuke clone came with her medicine the next time, and for some reason that made her angry. Coupled with her overall irritation from the debilitating effects of the drug and the sharp tug of hunger in her stomach, she managed a good kick to the ankles of the clone with both of her bound feet.

“Don’t touch me,” she snarled. Her patience was wearing thin. She was sick of waiting.

“Don’t be annoying,” the clone spat back, and it sounded so much like the real Sasuke that her throat swelled all the way closed.

She glared at the Sasuke clone with red hot hatred, and she made up her mind that she was done playing along. With the previous dose of medicine nearly burned out of her system, she figured this was as good an opportunity as any to make a move. She swung her legs forward, spinning herself around on the floor and forcing the clone to jump back. At the same time, she burst from her bindings and rolled into a crouch.

In a panic, the clone lunged forward, desperate to prevent her escape. His body fell across her back like a collapsed wall, and before she had the chance to shake him off, he took the opportunity to jab the needle in her neck.

Fully incensed now, Sakura released a burst of healing chakra in order to slow the chemical from absorbing into her blood. She wrenched her shoulder back, flinging the clone away so she could fully stand and face him.

The Sasuke clone looked surprised, and before another second could pass, Sakura concentrated a mass of chakra in her fist and lunged at him, connecting with his jaw in a sweeping uppercut.

“Mankai: Oukashou!”

The clone dissipated with the force of her hit, but she carried through the attack, breaking through the ground above her. Chunks of rock, dirt, grass, and cinderblock rained down around her as she tried to get her bearings in the flat dusty savanna.

She could assume she was still in Wind Country, but it seemed like she was pretty far from Suna.

Turning around, she focused on her next highest priority, which was the current threat of missing-nin rushing out from the hideout entrance. She scanned the horde, looking for Kido or Magire, and when she didn’t see either of them, she settled for taking out the underlings. Some of them, as they poured out from underground, just kept on running, away from the hideout and away from her.

She slammed her fist into her palm, ready to engage. The burn of healing chakra throughout her body was a welcome pain—like stretching before the main event. Then, she shook out her limbs, which were still waking up from having lain on the floor for however long, and lunged forward into the fray.

Since they’d abducted her in the night, she didn’t have any kunai or shuriken, but as she made her way through the crowd, it didn’t seem to matter. Despite being incredibly outnumbered, she was far more skilled than these petty henchman, and it didn’t take much to dispatch one after another. As their numbers were cut in half, more began to try and run away. Sakura didn’t care to give chase because she still felt Kido and Magire’s chakra presence somewhere in the area, and she knew they were the true ringleaders behind this operation.

She was about to take her chances and head back underground when she heard a familiar voice in her head.

“ _Sakura, it’s me, Ino. We’re coming to get you!”_

Not knowing how or why, but grateful nonetheless, Sakura took out the remaining stray ninja and waited for her backup. She was glad to see Ino, Sai, and Karin join her minutes later.

“What the hell happened here?” marveled Ino. At the same time Sai asked, “Was that everyone?”

Karin said nothing, but she smiled in a way that made Sakura’s heart jump.

“There’s at least two more, the leaders, Magire and Kido—”

As if summonded, the two men emerged from the underground hideout.

“That them?” Ino asked.

Sakura was already building up the chakra in her fists again. “That’s them.”

~~

Four against two. Karin liked those odds.

Though the odds didn’t stay in their favor for long. More people spilled out from underground.

“How many damn people are packed under there?” Ino muttered to herself, watching the new wave of missing-nin form a defensive wall in front of their leaders.

To make matters worse, Kido and Magire were both decked out in their sham kyuubi chakra cloaks, which they apparently could share with any of their subordinates that they touched. The burst of Kyuubi’s energy springing to life in front of her was a little disorienting since she could still feel the real Kyuubi’s chakra back by Suna, thundering like fireworks in the distance.

She had to block Naruto and whatever he was fighting out of her mind for now. They’d found Sakura and her captors. Their mission was here.

The cloaked missing-nin came towards them, and Karin returned their advance, along with her fellow teammates. She had never directly gone up against tailed-beast chakra before, and though it was just an imitation, it clearly emboldened the shinobi under its effect.

She lost herself in a group of four or five of them, relying on her Kagura’s Eye to preemptively see and dodge their attacks. The shinobi closed in around her, undeterred by her taijutsu attacks, and just as the group was about to overwhelm her, she released her Adamantine Attacking Chains. As expected, the technique derived from a fuuinjutsu was highly effective against the synthetic cloaks.

When the numbers started to thin, Kido and Magire entered the fight. Sakura immediately went after Kido, striking several quick hits to his chest. He didn’t react to the blows at all, though he did retreat through some bare trees and scrubby brush.

Karin followed them, leaving Sai and Ino to deal with Magire and any remaining lurkers. Something about Kido’s chakra was foreboding, and she didn’t like the idea of Sakura splitting off to engage with him on her own.

Kido fell back until they were out of sight from the other group. At some point, he grabbed the sword at his hip and surged forward to meet Sakura. The two went hand-to-hand for a few seconds while Karin caught up and immediately rushed Kido with her chakra chains.

The man was fast. He flickered back several paces, and before she or Sakura could react, he formed hand seals.

Vines of lightning burst from the ground, sharp and tangled like an unruly tumbleweed. Thorny tendrils crackled to life along either side of Karin and snapped together to catch her in their grasp. Pain flared all over where the bolts sunk into her skin, and all of her muscles locked up as the electricity shot through her. She had experienced this feeling before, and it wasn’t any more pleasant this time around.

“Karin!”

She didn’t hear Sakura call out to her or dash towards her as the lightning dispelled, and she dropped to the ground, her muscles finally disengaged. It took her a few seconds to pull herself together enough to be present in the battle again. As she struggled to her feet, she saw Sakura and Kido at it again.

Sakura ducked under a swift flick of Kido’s blade and aimed a punch at the ground. The earth under Kido’s feet blew apart, sending him flying. Surprised, Kido flailed through the air for just enough time for Sakura to land two more hits to his chest. Though, by the time he landed on his feet, he seemed wholly undisturbed by the hits.

Karin didn’t understand. _Was Sakura not hitting him with her full force, or was the synthetic tailed beast chakra healing him that quickly?_

Cautiously, she made her way closer, seeking an opportunity to strike without accidentally targeting Sakura. She didn’t have to wait too long though. Kido managed a long slice across Sakura’s arm, and as she recoiled, he created several shadow clones.

“Earth style: Mud wall!”

A few of the clones rammed into the dirt wall that sprouted up between them and Sakura, but the impact didn’t cause them to dispel. Sakura clutched her arm, healing it as she stepped back to assess the situation. Clones began leaping over the wall and Karin went after them with her chakra chains. A good spearing was enough to make a clone disappear.

Sakura joined in the assault against the clones just as the earth wall before them shattered from some kind of explosion. Karin finished off the last of the clones she’d been dealing with and made it to Sakura just as Kido stepped out from the settling dust. The cloak around him burned bright and hot like a fire.

“Was that—?”

“A tailed beast bomb,” Sakura confirmed.

The new information cemented Karin’s suspicion that Kido was a more proficient long-range fighter, and that was not comforting in the slightest. Karin worked best close to mid-range, and from what she could tell, Sakura was the same. If they let Kido get much distance, they’d stand no chance against a tailed beast bomb.

“We have to stay close,” Karin muttered as she lunged forward towards their opponent.

She could only hope that they had the advantage of speed on their side.

Sakura immediately mirrored her actions, and they both came at Kido on a slight angle, so that they wouldn’t collide if he suddenly moved out of the way. Despite the rapid onslaught of their approach, Kido was already forming hand seals. He finished his jutsu just as they came upon him, and lightning ignited the length of his sword which was heading Sakura’s way.

Karin grabbed his free wrist and wrenched his arm back, trying to simultaneously sweep his legs. He stood firm, but Sakura dodged the swing of his blade and managed to get another hit to his chest. Furious, Kido gripped Karin’s wrist right back and threw all of his body weight into twisting her to his other side, smashing her into Sakura. The two kunoichi fell to the ground, Karin with her back to Kido.

Before they even hit the ground, Karin could feel the static charging the air, causing every hair on her body to stand on end. She knew what was coming. Whether she was remembering Kido’s earlier attack or reliving the spear of lightning Sasuke had shot through her chest all those years ago, she didn’t know, but she could sense the bolt of energy even without seeing it.

There wasn’t time to dodge or even flinch. There wasn’t time to review her options or brace for impact. There was simply a moment that lasted half a heartbeat where Karin knew what was coming, and then it did.

Pain flared from her left shoulder throughout her whole body, tensing all of her muscles and flooding her system with an overload of sensory information. She’d known it was coming, and it had been every bit as horrible as she remembered. Her vision blacked out and her consciousness shut off. The next time she was aware of her surroundings, Sakura was standing over her, both her hands fisted into Kido’s collar. She bashed him in the head with her own, and both came away bleeding.

Karin struggled to right herself, but her skin was on fire and her head felt heavy and rattled around on her shoulders like an old shrine bell. She tried to activate her healing chakra, but she had no feeling in her limbs to know if it was actually working.

Kido blurred like he was trying to body-flicker away, but Sakura hooked her arm around his neck and drove her palm into his chest. Unlike all the other hits, his chest caved in this time, and Sakura followed through with her strike until he was incapacitated on the ground. Heaving a short stuttering breath, she whirled around and her hands lit up with blue healing chakra. She was at Karin’s side in the next instant.

“What happened?” Karin croaked.

The healing chakra took away a lot of her pain and reset the systems of her body, but her senses and her mind’s eye were still scrambled. She gazed past Sakura, nervously eyeing the body laid out before them. From what she could see, his chakra cloak had disappeared, indicating that the fight was over.

The adrenaline coursing through Karin’s blood vessels refused to let her sink into relaxation. Just as she had known the lightning would hit her, she felt that there was something else lurking around them. Her mind wasn’t clear enough to pick out the evidence that the battle wasn’t over, but she could feel it ringing out from the pit of her stomach.

“They gave me some kind of drug, so I couldn’t just beat him to a pulp with a few punches. On top of that, every time I hit him, his synthetic chakra would heal the damage. But, I predicted that after a couple hits in the same area, his cells would die because of over-replication. The last blow was just the final straw. His body couldn’t take it anymore.”

Karin’s head pounded as she tried to absorb Sakura’s words. The logic made sense to her, but something about the end of the fight was bothering her.

“Is he…?”

Sakura shushed her. “Don’t move too much, I’m almost done.”

Karin dipped her head forward, allowing Sakura easier access to her back. Her own healing factor had finally awakened, and she could feel the damage in her shoulder resolving in double time. If this kept up, she might not even scar that badly.

“Thanks,” she grunted after a few seconds of nothing but the sound of whooshing chakra.

Sakura hadn’t backed down. She’d finished the fight quickly and rushed over to aid Karin. Her actions deserved some kind of acknowledgment, even if Karin still had her suspicions that they hadn’t quite overcome the entire battle.

Sakura said nothing. Her hands remained steady, the pulsing of her healing energy constant.

Just as Karin was about to try and access her mind’s eye again, she heard the sound of her fears coming true.

“You meddling scum.”

Wet warmth streaked across her back, and she heard a deep gurgling sound. Sakura’s weight fell against her, and Karin reacted without thinking. Adamantine chains erupted from her core, seeking out the assailant and piercing through his midsection, absorbing his tailed beast chakra all the while.

He screamed in pain from either the puncture or the feeling of his chakra being ripped out of his body, but Karin hardly noticed. In the longest moment of her life, she shifted a hair’s length at a time because she didn’t want to jostle Sakura and make her injury worse. It felt like years before she was able to gently rest the kunoichi on the unforgiving bone-dry dirt plain, and Kido was howling the entire time.

There was a lot of blood, too much for Karin to determine if Kido had successfully cut Sakura’s carotid artery. Even if he missed, an injury in that general area was plenty dangerous. She leaned over Sakura and tried to push her healing chakra into the affected area with one hand. She knew that even Mystic Palm might not be able to heal Sakura fast enough to counteract the lack of oxygen to her brain, so with her other hand, she pressed her wrist against Sakura’s mouth.

“Bite me, it’ll heal you almost instantly,” Karin instructed.

She hoped Sakura was still conscious enough to hear and understand her, but the way Sakura’s eyelids were fluttering was not giving her hope.

“Sakura!”

Her chains tugged at her gut, and she felt Kido trying to retreat. She didn’t have the focus to keep him from wiggling away. When he finally broke free and made a run for it, her chains raised in the air all around her, ready to strike if he came back.

She used the chakra she’d stolen to redouble her efforts in knitting Sakura’s blood vessels and skin tissue back together. Every time Sakura’s heart beat, fresh blood rose up between the cracks of her fingers. The sight of all of that red leaking out from Sakura’s neck, the limpness of her body, the way her green eyes lolled around in her head like loose marbles—everything made Karin feel like she was about as substantial as a petal in a whirlpool.

“Sakura, please.”

She couldn’t do this. She knew her medical ninjutsu wasn’t good enough. She’d never spent much time practicing because she could always rely on her Heal Bite Technique. She had never considered a situation where her patient wouldn’t be able to bite her, and now, because of her carelessness and lack of discipline—

She was just as bad as the Grass ninja always told her. Why hadn’t she listened? Why hadn’t she put more effort into training? When Sasuke defected, he _only_ focused on training. Nothing else got in his way, not even the loss of a friend, the loss of her own life.

Karin couldn’t lose Sakura. She couldn’t let the person who had saved the life of a complete stranger, an enemy in more ways than one, die in her hands. There was some connection between them, some mutual understanding, some strange cosmic pathway, fate, whatever, and they had barely gotten the chance to even explore it. Karin wouldn’t let it end like this. She wouldn’t let another opportunity slip past her.

She poured more chakra into her palm, to the extent that her hand was radiating enough heat to burn the skin up her arm. She looked at Sakura’s half closed eyes, trying to will her enough consciousness to bite her.

“Come on, come on.”

Tears that dripped into the blue glow of her healing chakra evaporated instantly.

Sakura finally slid her eyes to meet Karin’s blurry stare.

“Sakura! Sakura, bite me!”

She pushed her wrist against Sakura’s lips more insistently.

Sakura’s head tilted, and Karin almost screamed.

“Don’t move!”

Flat pale eyes stared blankly at her. She felt Sakura’s lips move, as if she were trying to say something. With a bitter pinch of reluctance, Karin moved her wrist away from Sakura’s mouth.

“I won’t...bite...you…”

The healing chakra at Sakura’s neck flared as Karin’s brain thoroughly rejected what she’d heard.

“Fucking... _what_?!”

Sakura closed her mouth and had the nerve to form her lips into a barely noticeable smile.

“Like hell you won’t! Do you have a death wish or something?”

She stretched her free arm out in front of Sakura’s mouth again. She couldn’t begin to comprehend what was going on in Sakura’s mind—delusions from too much blood loss or something, she clearly wasn’t in her right mind.

Sakura brought her hands together and formed a hand seal.

“Creation Rebirth: One Hundred Healings.”

The diamond seal on Sakura’s forehead released, and deep violet lines arched across her skin. Almost immediately, Karin felt the wound under her hand regenerate, perfectly healed.

She pulled her hands away, turning her palms to face her, and staring. Her left hand and forearm was still coated with sticky red. Her right forearm was without a new bite mark.

“What?” Her confusion came out as a barely audible whisper.

Without warning, Sakura pulled herself into a crouch, then stood up like she was completely fine. She placed a hand on Karin’s shoulder, instantly resolving the pain from the lightning attack that Karin had completely forgotten about in her frenzy to keep Sakura alive.

She pulled her glasses forward so she could wipe the tears out of her eyes, then she stared back up at Sakura.

“Come on, Kido couldn’t have gone far,” Sakura said, scanning the area. She held out a hand to help Karin up.

Karin continued to gape as she was brought to standing.

“But you...”

Sakura grinned at her and squeezed the hand she was still holding.

“I’ll tell you all about it later, but right now...” her eyes shifted to the ground, where a clear trail of blood led into a patch of brush and desert shrubs. “We have some cleaning up to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I mentioned we're halfway through this fic at this point? Maybe even a little more than halfway...
> 
> PS. Sakura can do earth style (which is apparently canon, as well as water style, though I don't ever remember her using it in the series o.O) and also Mankai Oukasho is taken from one of the Ultimate Ninja Storm games. I mention this here because I reference some in-game-only attacks later (which are awesome, btw, and I am disappointed we never got them in the actual series). Also, according to the Naruto wiki, Karin can do earth style and water style too!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween!!

Kido was unconscious when they found him. He had barely made it through the sparse patch of desert grass before passing out. This time, Karin made sure to double check that he was the _real_ Kido, and that there weren’t any clones lurking around.

Sakura hoisted his body over her shoulder like it was nothing, and they made their way back to the clearing where they had left Sai and Ino to face Magire. As they approached, it seemed like that confrontation had come to an end too. Magire was on the ground, unmoving, and Sai was tying his wrists together behind his back. Ino was rummaging through her medical pouch when she noticed their presence.

“Ah, we were just about to head over and see if you needed any help,” Ino remarked. She finished up her inventory and zipped up her pouch, replacing it on her hip.

Sakura dumped Kido on the ground next to Magire, and Sai turned his attention to the lightning user soon after he finished with Magire.

“Should we go see if Naruto needs our assistance?”

Karin stilled to read the atmosphere, and out of the corner of her eye she could see Ino do the same. The explosion of chakra earlier had unmistakably belonged to him and the real Kyuubi. No matter how many times stronger Kido and Magire could have engineered their synthetic cloaks to be, they still paled in comparison. Yet as she searched the air, she couldn’t find a trace of his unique blend of aura.

“Naruto’s here?” Sakura asked, her tone indicating worry.

“We felt his and Kyuubi’s chakra earlier,” Ino explained, as the focused expression on her face melted away. “I don’t feel him now though.”

Karin searched for him with her mind’s eye and found him heading towards Suna. Kyuubi’s chakra wasn’t present anymore, and as she focused harder on his location, she found that he was accompanied by the Kazekage, a few Sand ANBU, and two unconscious shinobi that she was sure she recognized…

She put the identity of those unconscious shinobi to the back of her mind for later.

“He’s with Kazekage-sama and the ANBU,” Karin relayed. “It appears that they’re on their way back to the village with two incapacitated ninja.”

Everyone around her seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Sakura released her Hundred Healings jutsu, and Karin felt a cold rush go through her as the massive amount of chakra Sakura had been emitting suddenly came to a halt.

“If he’s with Gaara-san, then he’s fine,” Sakura surmised.

“Yeah, Gaara-san wouldn’t let harm come to a single hair on Naruto’s hyperactive head,” Ino agreed.

Sai stood up, having finished the bindings, and the three Leaf ninja turned to their captives, already making plans about how best to transport them back to the village. Karin half-listened, but there was something else that she wanted to check on before she could allow her nerves to settle.

Passively, she let Kagura’s Eye seek out Sasuke’s chakra signature and any chakra signature with more than a ninety percent similarity.

~~

Sai transported them back to Suna, where they met up with the others. Kido and Magire, along with the two shinobi who had attacked Naruto, were turned over to Baki for interrogation. Sakura was surprised to see that Kido’s two additional accomplices were Sekka and Ryoukan from Suna’s hospital lab division.

Though she was curious to know exactly what had happened, she knew the protocol, and she had to wait her turn to be interviewed by Suna’s ANBU regarding her abduction. Furthermore, she knew she wouldn’t get anything out of Gaara now. The scowl on his face was evidence enough that he was much too tense about the threat to Konoha’s jinchuuriki, even if it seemed like Naruto hadn’t had any trouble with his attackers.

“Yo, let’s get ramen after our interviews, okay?” he shouted over his shoulder as Gaara—with the presence of a stone wall—ushered him down the hallway to the Kazekage’s office.

Sakura rolled her eyes but sent him an exasperated smile from where she was seated outside of the ANBU office. Leave it to Naruto to take an ambush and an undercover plot to murder one of his former teammates in stride. She couldn’t help but sigh at his ever optimistic disposition, but she had every intention of meeting him later.

A few minutes later and Karin exited the ANBU office.

“You can go in now,” she said curtly. Her sharp red gaze was cast down at the floor, and her shoulders were slumped forward. She seemed tired.

“Are you okay?” Sakura immediately began to wonder if there was something she had missed when she healed Karin earlier.

_But she had used Mitotic Regeneration, so everything should have been instantly fixed…_

“Yeah, just a little worn out from today. That’s all.”

Karin started to walk away, without having spared a single glance Sakura’s way. Sakura wanted to stop her, but she also didn’t want to seem overbearing. If nothing else, Sasuke had taught her that no one liked clinginess.

“Hey, um, me and Naruto, and probably Gaara-san, and probably half of Suna if Naruto’s gonna be there, are going out for ramen later, if you want to come,” she tried in a light tone.

Karin paused. “Thanks, but...I think I’ll just stay in and rest.”

She continued on down the hallway, and Sakura watched until she disappeared around the corner. An unsettling feeling sprouted in the pit of her heart. Even though she didn’t really have any proof, she had the strangest feeling that Karin was upset with _her_.

“Haruno Sakura? You there?” called a voice from inside the ANBU office.

“Coming!” Sakura shouted back.

_Maybe Karin was right. Maybe they were all just exhausted from the day’s events._

Sakura cleared her mind as much as she could and then stepped into the ANBU office. She wasn’t familiar with the particular ANBU who were questioning her, but they seemed cordial enough. Most of the questions they asked were ones that she had expected, and she had no problem with any of her answers.

When the session was over, a tokubetsu jounin who had been part of the interview let her know that their official debriefing would be tomorrow morning. She also went on to describe some of their preliminary findings based on the information they had gathered so far.

Kido and Magire were originally from Konoha, and they had met as ANBU assigned to Danzou’s Root division. Kido had grown up poor, and his sick father had forgone medicine in order to pay for Kido’s academy fees. Kido did not learn of his father’s actions until after his death, at which point he became hyper-fixated on money and power. After the war, he and Magire had defected from Konoha to become missing-nin.

Magire’s motivation was still unknown.

The duo’s whereabouts after their defection was hazy, but it was known that at some point they had met up with a few rogue ninja from Suna who were aware of some political unrest regarding the expansion and reorganization of the hospital.

Sekka and his former apprentice Ryoukan were vehemently opposed to the expanded hospital services. They had both held positions as medi-nin since the Fourth Kazekage had been in power, and they were unhappy with the changes Gaara made to the village after assuming the title of Fifth Kazekage. The reformat of the hospital had been their last straw, as if had affected both of their livelihoods directly.

They tried to appeal to Suna’s council, that expanding the hospital and offering low-cost therapy programs would cause too much economic burden. However, the success of the program in Konoha meant that the senior councilors were unswayed. Without political backing, the Suna nin turned to seek help from less reputable sources.

The two Konoha ninja and the two Suna ninja were a perfect match. Magire had already proposed the idea of creating synthetic tailed-beast cloaks and a Sasuke clone from the leftover DNA samples at the Valley of the End, and Kido imagined that they could use those creations to lure the real Sasuke and take his eyes. However, they lacked the necessary equipment to synthesize the drugs they needed.

When Sekka and Ryoukan learned of their plan, they agreed to help, on the condition that they could use the power obtained from Sasuke’s eyes to influence the minds of of Suna’s council, even to the extent of placing the Kazekage under genjutsu. They knew that such an extensive genjutsu would have to be extremely powerful to work, so they also came up with the idea to kill one of Sasuke’s teammates in front of him. Both Sekka and Ryoukan had done extensive research on kekkei genkai, and they knew emotional instability was a surefire way to strengthen the Sharingan.

As Sakura had expected, she would have been that sacrifice.

The information was a lot to process, and Sakura didn’t feel like going out for ramen as she left the ANBU office.

But, she didn’t get to see Naruto that often anymore, and a mini Team 7 reunion would probably cheer her up. So, despite the heaviness in her shoulders, she forced herself to go home, shower, and then get ready to meet with the others.

~~

Sakura had just finished recounting her experiences from the past few days when Naruto slung an arm around her shoulders. His other arm was around Gaara’s shoulders, which looked kind of funny since the Kazekage was sitting stiff as a board and seemed to have dark storm clouds looming over him. Though, to be fair, Gaara’s reaction had nothing to do with Naruto and everything to do with the decent-sized crowd that Naruto drew. The dark aura he was giving off kept a healthy radius between them and Naruto’s admirers. Gaara had his own admirers too, but they seemed generally less boisterous and forthcoming. Sakura could see why the situation would put the Kazekage on edge.

“Hey, what’s wrong? You kicked that Kido guy’s butt, and took out his Sasuke clone. That’s, like, pretty cool, you know? The Sakura-chan I know would be stoked about it!”

Naruto, unlike his two companions, was lax as water running through a stream. He’d already finished three bowls of ramen and was deciding whether or not to order a fourth.

Sakura had been surprised that he’d demanded to know her side of things as soon as she’d sat down in the ramen shop. She thought it would be more like him to jump into describing his own heroic feats against Sekka and Ryoukan, and she could admit that she was curious to know. The small gathering around them also seemed eager to hear another tale from the legendary Uzumaki Naruto.

Then, his first bowl of ramen had come out, and as he stuffed his face, she realized he wouldn’t be able to talk and eat at the same time, hence his gracious offer that she could speak first. Her surprise quickly dissolved as she realized the truth, and she had to fight back Inner Sakura’s instinct to call him out on it. Instead, she bit back a laugh.

_Once a knucklehead, always a knucklehead._

At least it was kind of comforting to know that some things never changed.

Because the investigation wasn’t completely over yet, she had to hold back certain details since they were in public. Naruto understood, and anyway, he seemed most interested in the Sasuke clone, probably since he hadn’t had the chance to see it.

“So, have you heard from the real Sasuke at all?” he asked after she was done.

Something about her answer to that question made Sakura feel ashamed. She set her chopsticks down across the top of her first and only bowl of ramen and stared the uneven edge where she’d broken them apart.

“No. Not once. Have you?”

She was almost afraid for his reply.

“ _You’re so annoying.”_

For so long she had spent so much of her energy chasing after him. Even before Sasuke defected, as a classmate at the academy and a teammate in Team 7, there was no way around the fact that the three of them had been through a lot together. If she found out now that Sasuke had reached out to Naruto but not to her, she would have to go home and deal with ruthless self-doubt and questions like ‘What was wrong with her?’ and ‘Why didn’t he even want to attempt to be friends after all this time?’

“Nope,” Naruto answered, and then he went on about how he was sure Sasuke was fine and how the Uchiha would definitely contact them if something was wrong.

Sakura felt a mix of relief and guilt. She didn’t want to become someone who would wish Sasuke wouldn’t contact Naruto without also contacting her. She thought she had gotten past the insecurities she had about him and moved on with her life, and now she could plainly see that wasn’t the case.

It felt like taking a hundred steps back, only to realize she’d never moved at all. Somehow that stagnancy was even more disappointing.

Naruto continued on and on, almost as to reassure himself that Sasuke was fine, until Gaara changed the subject and directed Naruto’s ranting to the topic of their encounter with Sekka and Ryoukan.

The fact that Naruto of all people was maybe worried for Sasuke made Sakura even more irritated with herself. How could she be upset at Sasuke’s lack of communication before even considering that he might be sick or in danger? It troubled her that she had felt so entitled to hear from him when concern for his safety wasn’t the first thing that had come to her mind.

She could also feel her skin burning because she knew she was wallowing in self-pity, and she couldn’t allow herself to do that. Mitotic Regeneration wasn’t mastered by moping around for five years! She knew how to improve herself when she identified areas that were deficient, regardless of how painstaking and long the process might be.

So, she knew she could begin to mend things, if that was what she needed. It was okay for her to have an off night, and she tried to slow down her thoughts and focus more of her attention on Naruto’s yammering. He was a good storyteller, and she let his enthusiasm nourish her own wavering spirit. Although, there were several moments where his excitement got the best of him, and Gaara had to stop him from leaking sensitive information to their audience.

By the time she got home to her apartment, she already felt sturdier. New confidence had been planted in her core, and she went about her bedtime routine with quiet determination. Just before she was about to climb into bed, she opened the drawer on her nightstand and took out an old photo.

The portrait of Team 7 on their formation day was objectively ridiculous. Only Sakura was smiling. Naruto and Sasuke were glaring at each other, and Kakashi looked like a parent embarrassed over his child throwing a tantrum in public. Usually the picture filled her with a warm nostalgia. When she put it back in its drawer, turned off her light, and got into bed, she thought about how they ought to take a new team photo with everyone: herself, Naruto, Sai, Yamato, Kakashi, and Sasuke.

~~

Gaara was straight to the point when it came to their debriefing, and Karin was glad. She’d heard most of what she’d wanted to know during her questioning with the ANBU, and she didn’t need a refresher. Her mind’s eye jutsu had finished sometime in the night while she was tossing and turning, unable to sleep, and confirmed to her that not only were there no other Sasuke copies running around but also that the real Sasuke Uchiha was far away somewhere in Hot Water Country. Knowing that he wasn’t involved in any of this was enough to knock her out for the night.

The meeting only dragged because Naruto asked a million inane questions, all of which Gaara answered with unending patience. Karin had been wondering whether she should tell the male Uzumaki about their likely distant blood relation, but every interaction with him made it clear that she would become the target of his infinite babbling if he ever knew. She thought it would be best to break the news in a passing comment, ideally when he was about to leave Suna.

When it was brought up that Sai would be transporting the two missing-nin from the Leaf back to their home village, Naruto was keen to accompany him. Gaara forbid him from doing so, although he had no authority over the actions of a Konoha shinobi as the Kazekage. Karin was somewhat confused by the relationship between the two, but she settled on assuming it had to do with some kind of shared experience as jinchuuruki. After some more discussion, it was decided that Gaaras’s sister Temari would go along with Sai.

The inconvenience of the amount of time it took for the journey from Suna to Konoha made Karin want to return to her research and the mountain of books in her room. The jutsu she had in mind to create would solve these problems related to time-sensitive travel, and ideas would be nagging at the back of her mind all day until she could get home.

Unfortunately, she was going to have to put up with the annoying curiosity for most of the day, especially since she had work after the debriefing. She’d had the option to take the day off, since she’d been part of the mess with Kido and Magire, but she figured it would be better to maintain the routine she’d built up over the past month. She didn’t regret her decision, but she did wish she’d brought one of the books with her to read in her downtime.

When the meeting was over, and everyone dispersed, she noticed Sakura sidling up beside her. She had purposely kept her vision away from the medi-nin throughout the meeting, and she had succeeded in keeping her thoughts occupied with other matters as well. Now that those barriers were gone, she felt a weird slimy feeling unravel in her stomach. She could admit to herself that she had tried to ignore it, and to that end, Sakura as well.

It was an unpleasant feeling, and she hoped it would go away once she was out of the chaos of battle and everything had cooled down. It’s return now as she stared into the bright hopeful question behind Sakura’s green eyes forced her to deal with it.

“I have off today, if you wanted to do something...” Sakura offered.

A mix of emotions crushed and pulled at Karin’s insides, but she drew on the haphazard shinobi training she’d received over the years and kept her outward appearance neutral.

“Actually, I have work today,” she replied with no inflection in her tone.

The lack of emotion in her voice did not produce the effect she hoped for because Sakura’s face fell. She fidgeted with the wide belt around her waist.

Karin felt her insides swirl.

“How about we talk after my shift?” She tried to lighten her tone, but this time the words themselves were heavy as she spoke them.

There wasn’t any way around it. Ever since Sakura had refused her Heal Bite, she had been wracked with insidious self-doubt. Sakura had seemed so supportive when Karin had told her about her scars, but when the time came, why had Sakura refused to let Karin heal her? The only conclusion that Karin could draw was that Sakura saw the marks as something dirty and disgusting, proof that she had been used by others.

Though Karin tried not to let her assumptions get the best of her, she couldn’t see any other perspective. Sakura might like her and feel sorry for what happened to her, but that didn’t mean she wanted to get so involved. Maybe this was a part of Karin that Sakura could never fully accept, and if that were the case, Karin would rather know sooner than later.

Though that would really, really suck.

“O-okay!” Sakura said, perking up slightly. Her voice had a tentative hopefulness to it.

Karin let the feeling glide past her without resistance. There was no point in stewing about it all day. Wishful thinking might not improve the situation any, but neither would a bad attitude.

“There’s a café near my apartment, if you don’t mind...” Karin continued.

By the time they finalized their plans, and Karin had departed for work, the slippery feeling in her gut—though still very clearly there and uncomfortable—seemed manageable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I 1000% think Naruto and Gaara should be together, so even though I never mention it in this fic, if you want to read into their interactions that way, go for it. But, if you don't , you don't have to, since like I said, it's never outright brought up. 
> 
> But c'mon, the mental image of them eating ramen together with storm clouds hanging over a sullen Gaara and rainbows and sunshine streaming out over Naruto is just too adorable.


	15. Chapter 15

As Karin was leaving the hospital grounds for the day, she heard Amai call out to her. She waited for him to catch up since she had time to spare before meeting up with Sakura.

“Hey, I heard about what happened,” he said, not breaking stride as he approached her, “Sounds absolutely nuts.”

Karin followed him across the neatly swept path leading into the lumpy sand road. He put his hands behind his head and leaned back, stretching slightly. His casual aura suppressed Karin’s initial reaction of defensiveness.

“I mean, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. Hell, I hear Naruto is telling anyone who will listen, and I’m sure there will be an official statement from the Kazekage’s office soon,” he added breezily, “But, if you did want to talk about it, or maybe get absolutely trashed and forget it ever happened, I’m your guy.”

Karin laughed at the ridiculousness of his statement. Amai did not fit the stereotype of someone who got “trashed.”

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”

Karin didn’t think she’d ever been drunk. Her twentieth birthday passed while she was on the road, and she hadn’t wanted to celebrate with strangers. Not that anyone would have cared if she’d wanted to drink before that, but the thought hadn’t crossed her mind. She wasn’t that much more curious about it, now that Amai had mentioned it.

“Anyway,” Amai went on, skillfully changing the subject, “My birthday is in two days, so this weekend I’m having a party. You should come. The rest of Rotation will be there.”

“You celebrate birthdays in Kumo?” she asked without thinking.

She’d never noticed anyone celebrating their birthday when she’d been in Kusa, and Orochimaru hated anything that reminded him of his mortality. Though, as she thought about it, the idea of celebrating a birthday didn’t seem that weird. Rather, it was weirder that she’d somehow avoided it up until now.

He looked at her with some concern.

“Yeah,” he said finally, “I guess you don’t in...Sound…?”

She realized he didn’t know where she was from. It was likely that most people assumed she was from Otogakure, since that’s where she’d been working for Orochimaru. Ironically, she felt the urge to correct him and tell him she was from Grass, even after all this time, even despite the fact that she had been a refugee there and none of Kusagakure’s citizens had ever stopped reminding her that she didn’t truly belong.

Karin thought she was probably born in Uzushiogakure, right before it’s ultimate destruction, but she didn’t feel any connection to the place to claim it as her nationality. She didn’t remember a single thing about the village, and she’d probably been an infant when her mother had fled. Every memory from her childhood took place in Kusa, and her mother never told her much about their former homeland. As a child, Karin had never thought to ask.

In any case, Karin didn’t know how to explain all of that without confusing the hell out of Amai. The tea shop she was supposed to be meeting Sakura at was also coming up quickly. She summarized her thoughts on the matter with a shrug, and Amai remained silent. He appeared to have lost his train of thought, and it was quiet between them until Karin stopped to split off.

“Sorry, I’m not going home. I’m meeting Sakura for tea and...”

The expression on his face lightened. “Oh, nice. I’ve got some time...”

She felt the expression on her face change, and though she didn’t exactly know what it was, Amai suddenly got the picture.

“Oh. _Oh_. Uh, haha, actually never mind! I really need to clean my apartment.”

He laughed. It was not convincing. She almost wished he’d just make fun of her like Mikoshi did.

Face steaming, she took off her glasses before they could fog over.

Amai sent a blurry smile towards her.

“Anyway, good luck with Sakura-senpai!”

~~

The cafe wasn’t quiet since it was filling up with people ending their shift or classes, but the amalgamation of all of the voices blended together into a tolerable background ambiance. Sakura had a steaming cup of tea on the table in front of her. Karin, who sat across from her, had a plastic cup of lukewarm water.

Sakura looked worried, and Karin felt nervous too, but not as much as she had expected. Something about Sakura’s presence was inherently soothing. Even though she didn’t know how their conversation would turn out, Karin had a strange surplus of confidence. She knew Sakura, and she trusted Sakura to be able to talk about uncomfortable things between them.

Karin cleared her throat, ready to speak in the same serious tone she often used with Orochimaru’s prisoners. She wanted to talk about these things without making it personal for either of them, and she thought it would be better if she sounded detached.

“Well, first, thanks for meeting me here. And second, thanks for saving my life, again.”

Sakura’s brows pushed together in confusion, but she waited.

“Right. So, I’ve just been wondering...why did you refuse my Heal Bite jutsu?”

Sakura blinked and looked down at her teacup. When she looked back up at Karin, there was an expectant expression on her face, like she thought Karin would keep going. When Karin did not elaborate, Sakura’s features dissolved into outright confusion. She picked up her teacup, took a sip, and set it back down, still thoroughly puzzled.

“I didn’t need to,” Sakura explained finally, once she was sure that Karin had nothing else to add, “I released my Hundred Healings seal and I instantly recovered.”

Karin felt the corner of her mouth twitch up in a small smile in spite of herself. She had thought Sakura might answer this way, and she knew her question had been a little vague. Still, she’d asked it just in case Sakura caught the underlying meaning right away and because she wanted to prepare herself to get to the heart of the matter which was a sensitive topic for her.

“Do you think that it’s dirty? That you would be lowering yourself to bite where others have used…?” Her tone was still hard, but she had to suck in her breath at the end of her question. All the sharp thoughts she’d had during that sleepless night immediately following Kido’s capture returned to her with honed edges.

Sakura’s eyes widened.

“What? No!”

Karin rested her arms on the table, and she looked down at the purple sleeves covering her scars. A few dotted out across her wrists to the backs of her hands. The red and white marks began to blur together, despite how intently she was focusing on them. The thought occurred to her that maybe having this conversation in public wasn’t the best idea, though she had originally thought that being surrounded by others would prevent her from getting too emotional.

The majority of the times she’d been bitten had been around others though, and they hadn’t cared, even as she cried and screamed. The memories were there, just under the surface of her skin, and the more she stared, the more she could feel them bleeding through.

Her nose became runny and congested, and she had to breathe through her mouth with slow inhales and exhales.

_Shit_.

“Karin, no! I’m so—sorry if you thought—no—I—!” Sakura stammered out a garbled sentence of incoherent thought before pausing to collect herself. “Karin, I don’t think that way about you or your jutsu at all! I just, at the time, I knew I could heal myself. I didn’t feel like I was actually in danger, and...”

Karin clutched at her cup of water. The plastic creaked in her grip as she brought it to her mouth and took several hard swallows. She forced the stinging in her throat back down.

“When I said I wouldn’t...that I wouldn’t bite you...”

Karin could feel Sakura’s eyes on her face, imploring her to look up and catch her gaze. She couldn’t. She stayed locked in her position, facing the water sloshing in the cup she held. Her face felt hot and cold at once, melting. She didn’t know what to think about what Sakura was saying.

“When you told me about...about your jutsu and about how all those people treated you...I didn’t want you to feel like I would take advantage of you like they did.”

Through the warped plastic she noticed motion and saw a distorted outline of Sakura’s hand reaching out across the table for hers. Karin didn’t move.

The information was just barely processing through her mind.

_Sakura...hadn’t actually been in any danger?_

The waves of hot and cold had spread from her face to her whole body. Floundering to stay composed, she caught on to bits of the conversation from the table next to theirs.

“Kumiko-sensei agreed to take on a team of genin this year, and I hope I get assigned to her team.”

“Idiot. You have to pass the graduation exam before you start worrying about that.”

The swell of emotion backed down, and she gulped down more of the unappealingly warm water. It had a metallic aftertaste to it that lingered as she set the cup back down and allowed her eyes to float from Sakura’s pale hand to her ashen face. Her eyes were heavy with tears, and Karin had to look away.

Her shoulder ached where Kido had hit her with his lightning. Her heart, where Sasuke had hit her with his, ached too.

Had anyone ever refused her Heal Bite before? Most of the time, people did it without even asking her. Sakura had actually considered her feelings. Karin had been right to trust her.

Karin took off her glasses and rubbed at her eyes. With the world soft around her, she let all the volatile feelings drain from her. She felt tired and weak as she cycled through some deep breathing.

“Karin?” Sakura asked, with trepidation in her voice. Her hand remained on the table, closer to Karin’s but a hesitant distance away. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t even realize. Next time, if you want, I can—Even now, I’m not injured, but, I don’t mind—”

Putting her glasses back on, she smiled at Sakura. The worry that was steeped in all of Sakura’s features gave way for her to return a small confused smile back.

“It’s okay,” Karin said, the pitch of her voice sliding back up to her normal range. “I just misunderstood, that’s all...”

She brought her hand to rest on top of Sakura’s. The medi-nin immediately shifted her palm so she could clasp Karin’s in her own. Her grip was firm, and Karin could feel a steady buzz of chakra pulsing through the meridians under her skin.

Not that she had suspected Sakura of lying at any point, but her sensory perception reassured her that everything Sakura said had come from her heart. That alone was overwhelming enough, and Karin was sure she’d be unable to sleep later because her brain would still be processing everything about this moment. She almost wanted to switch off her sensory perception, but the effort to due so and the resulting disconnect from the world would leave her even more exhausted and slightly jumpy.

Besides, there was one more thing that she had yet to bring up. She wouldn’t have mentioned it at all if the rest of the conversation hadn’t gone as well as it did, and now she felt ready to finally broach this topic.

“Sakura, there is one more thing I need to tell you...”

Sakura looked at her with a stone-hard seriousness in her eyes. She squeezed Karin’s hand, encouraging her to go on, letting Karin know that she could take anything that Karin needed to say.

Karin squeezed back and sighed, and when she was ready, she took a deep breath and looked Sakura right in the eye.

“I really, really don’t like gyoza.”

~~

In the following days, Karin settled back into her normal routine. Ruka finally arrived in Suna, and Mikoshi feigned exasperation about having to train both her and Karin at the same time. Takuya-san became the new Suna-based supervisor of the lab section, and Sakura began making onigiri for Karin’s bento. Sakura’s lunches were still not the best in terms of flavor, but Karin was just glad for anything other than gyoza.

Amai’s birthday party was more enjoyable than Karin had expected, and even better, she had gathered plenty of material to use against Mikoshi whenever he decided to tease her about Sakura. The only downside was that she had been trying to work up the courage to kiss Sakura all night, and she had miserably failed that objective. She tried not to dwell on it though. She and Sakura had a real date planned for the following week.

The opening of Iwa’s new hospital wing was coming up in a few months, which meant that all of the Rotation staff were pulled into several meetings about cultural sensitivity, history of the Iwa medical system, and current practices of the Iwa hospital. Sometimes the meetings were interesting, but most of the time she ended up daydreaming about the stack of books on her desk at home or a certain pink-haired kunoichi.

~~

At some point during Naruto’s vacation in Suna, Sakura let it slip that Karin was an Uzumaki.

“What?!” His eyes bulged like overripe grapes. “So she’s like a distant relative of mine or something? Oh man, does that mean I should be calling her Karin-neechan from now on?”

Sakura rubbed at her temples, wondering how she could deflect Naruto’s attention away from this topic. Unfortunately, she knew him well enough to realize that this was exactly the kind of thing he would _never_ forget. She would have to warn Karin before he got to her, somehow, and apologize. They hadn’t even been on their first real date yet, and already Sakura was causing her this kind of trouble…

“Date? What?! You and Karin-neechan are together?” Naruto cried, even more surprised. He came up right into her face, demanding her attention and some answers, and she had to shove him away like he was an overeager puppy.

_Had she said that out loud…?_

“Oh no, you’re not getting out of this one!” Naruto exclaimed, completely undeterred, “Me and Sai had to suffer through you making fun of us for our relationships. Now it’s your turn!”

He was shouting so loud with glee, and citizens of Suna were turning their heads to look. Moreso than citizens already usually stared at Naruto. Sakura blushed violently, knowing the battle to quiet Naruto could never be won. She accepted her fate with grim resolution as he continued to rave.

“What am I supposed to do about this? She’s family, so I guess that means I should give you a stern talking-to! But you’re my best friend and also basically my family, so maybe I should be warning her?”

He was really having a lot of fun with this dilemma, which was made obvious by the mocking tone in his voice and the insane grin spread across his face. Dust clouds began to emanate from where they were walking since Naruto was practically bouncing up and down through the sandy streets.

“Naruto, if you don’t shut up about this...” she warned him through gritted teeth.

Her face was so hot that her embarrassment was boiling over into annoyance.

Naruto, of course, did not shut up about it.

“I guess maybe you cancel each other out, so I don’t have to be all threatening and scary to either of you.” He seemed disappointed by this and immediately disregarded his conclusion. “Well, I have known you way longer. Like practically my whole life. So maybe it should be Karin-neechan...”

Sakura closed her eyes and tried to ignore him. The way that her hands also closed into fists indicated that she was not very successful.

“Oh! You know what else? How weird is it that out of all Team 7, Sasuke is the only one of us to still be single? After everyone was always fawning over him at the academy...You don’t think he has a secret lover out there, do you?”

Sakura saw her chance, and she took it.

“Who knows? Maybe. He sure as hell didn’t come to investigate his clone that kidnapped me.” The words sounded more bitter than she thought they would be.

Even Naruto noticed. He slowed down and stared at her with his wide empathetic eyes.

“Hey, you know, I’m sure he’s just somewhere really off the grid and didn’t hear about it. Maybe he still hasn’t heard about it. Whatever he’s doing out there, he’s doing it to atone. Maybe he’s waiting until he feels that he’s redeemed himself enough to face us again.”

The annoyance that had sprouted from Naruto’s teasing suddenly turned on herself. She wished she hadn’t said anything about Sasuke. She didn’t even know why she was still upset about him. It wasn’t like she ever had to actually “get over” him, so why should she care what he was doing now? They had never been friends, and she had no reason to hope for anything different.

“It doesn’t matter,” she huffed, quickening her pace.

Naruto caught up with her easily. He was much taller than her now, and his stride outpaced hers by a significant amount. Even such a small thing as the length of Naruto’s footsteps irritated her further, and she didn’t understand why. A sudden strong urge made her want to challenge him to a race to the training grounds where they would spar together like old times.

Instead she just crossed her arms over her chest and scowled. It was a very Sasuke-like thing to do, a thought which needled at her skin. She tried to think of some of the calming techniques that Ino had mentioned before, but her mind was too fired up to focus.

Noticing her foul mood, Naruto dropped the subject.

“Anyway, so you and Karin, huh? How long has it been?” he asked thoughtfully.

She didn’t have a definitive answer to give him, and when she mumbled something to that effect, he chuckled.

“Ah, I see. Still that early.”

She hated the feeling that he knew more about this topic than she did. She wasn’t sure that had ever happened before. Worse, she imagined him trying to give her advice, and she almost shuddered.

“Aren’t the chuunin exams coming up soon? Are you gonna finally take them?” she asked pointedly.

Naruto squirmed, and his eyes darted around to find some kind of distraction around the village. When he didn’t find any, he pulled at his collar and grimaced.

“Hmmm, you know, I don’t remember saying I’d walk you all the way to the library,” he mused, glancing at her out of the of corner of his eye.

“I’m sure there are a lot of resourceful books there you could use to study,” she goaded, rounding on him.

He backed away, his face turning blueish with horror, like he could see her channeling Iruka’s spirit.

Somewhere in Konoha, Iruka sneezed.

“Sakura-chan, please. I’m supposed to be on vacation...”

“I can even help you make flashcards! Ooh, back at the academy, I used to highlight all the different topics in different colors whenever we had a quiz or test coming up.”

There was a wide distance between them now. He fidgeted with the wrappings on his right hand, eyeing the paths around them for his escape strategy. She just grinned back evilly.

If nothing else, the members of Team 7 were really good at pushing each other’s buttons.

“Yup, well. You know where the library is, and I’ll probably see you later, so...Bye!”

He took off quick, not using body flicker technique, but still disappearing within the blink of an eye. His speed didn’t go unnoticed by Sakura, whose smile faded as she turned back to the direction of the library. She couldn’t help but compare.

_He was so fast. Had he gotten faster? Had she gotten any faster? Was she falling behind again?_

By the time she got to the library, she had almost completely forgotten what she meant to do there in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Karin finally told Sakura she doesn't like gyoza. It was a long time coming.


	16. Chapter 16

Karin had gotten the idea for the date from Tsuchibachi, and the more she thought about it, the more she knew it was perfect. Taking a cooking class together would be a good way to evaluate how they worked together as a team without the added pressure of fighting for their lives. After all, it was easy to feel close to someone on your side during a near death experience.

From a more non-shinobi perspective, she also secretly hoped that maybe Sakura would be inspired to sacrifice health in favor of taste, at least some of the time. Also, Karin had never cooked anything for Sakura before, and she was kind of intimidated. The class seemed like a good way to ease herself into that kind of situation.

She peered into the small mirror above her bathroom sink, pushed her hair back behind her ear, and wondered if she should tie it back. She always tied it back when working in the lab for safety reasons, and she was aware most restaurants required their employees to wear hairnets. She couldn’t imagine a cooking class would be so strict, but just in case, she pulled her hair into a high pony-tail.

As a final touch, she dabbed some perfume oil onto her wrists and took one last look in the mirror. Unsurprisingly, the perfume oil hadn’t changed her appearance any. She tried to keep her thoughts contained to the moment, but already her head was somewhere else.

She stepped out of the bathroom, her insides feeling scraped clean like a hollowed out gourd. All of the ways the night could go wrong flooded past her eyes, along with all the ways the night could go well. She wasn’t sure which group of scenarios was making her more nervous.

Suna was cold at night. Not as cold as it got in the winter in Grass, or Sound for that matter, but colder than she would have expected for a desert. The streets were more crowded after the sun went down, which was confusing, but the sensory input from all of the people bustling around made an attempt to divide her attention from her mounting anxiety. By the time she’d reached her destination though, every footstep felt like a thunderous stomp, every laugh was sharp and pointed at her, and even the grainy shush of sand through the wind sounded like a thousand senbon stealthily slicing through the air.

She saw Sakura standing outside the building by the door, looking around through the passing crowds. Karin’s stomach flipped upside-down, and she almost took a step backwards. Every nerve in her body was alive with panic. The thoughts that had raced ahead of her as she’d been getting ready were suddenly smacking her in the face all at once with too many possibilities.

Wondering how to even begin to approach the kunoichi, she stood there stock-still, rooted to the ground and red-faced until Sakura noticed her.

“Oh, Karin! I’m over here!”

Karin dragged one foot forward and cursed herself for getting so worked up over this date. She’d piled so much importance on making sure their first real date went well, that she seemed to have forgotten simple things like walking and breathing.

Sakura came over to her, threading through the clumps of passersby with the ease of a ninja that Karin supposedly also was.

“Sorry, I was a little early. Oh, do you think I should pull my hair back too? I guess they might be that serious...” Sakura pulled a hairband off her wrist and secured her hair neatly away from her face.

Karin realized she still hadn’t said anything yet.

“Hi...Sakura...”

Her voice sounded far away and flimsy in her ears.

_Damn. How had she always been so forthcoming with Sasuke?_

There were so many feelings bubbling up from inside her that she felt like she was going to choke.

“I saw some people go in already, so I think we can go in too. I was just waiting for—Are you okay?”

Sakura’s eyes, wide with concern, snapped her out of it. At least, for the time being.

“Yeah, just fine!” Karin declared. With a burst of impulsiveness, she linked her arm with Sakura’s and barreled her way to the entrance.

Sakura laughed as she was tugged along, and Karin found herself laughing a little too. The action relieved some of the tightness in her chest, and she let her arm relax until her hand brushed against Sakura’s. As their fingertips danced around each other, Karin felt her thoughts settle that much more.

_Sakura_ wasn’t _Sasuke. And this wasn’t even their first date._

Their hands slipped together without effort, as if echoing the notion that Karin was wasting her energy fretting over things that didn’t need a second thought. Though she couldn’t exactly turn off her brain, she let her thoughts pull away from hypothetical situations and stick to the warmth of Sakura’s hand or how her hair looked opalescent under the street lamps.

~~

Inside the classroom there were six identical setups, each with its own range, sink, and counter space. There was a large double-door refrigerator at the front of the room, along with racks and racks of kitchen supplies. The instructor was already present, scribbling on a notepad and muttering to himself.

Sakura choose one of the setups in the front of the room, so they might have a better view if the instructor demonstrated anything. The two couples she had seen enter were at their own stations, one in the back, and the other across from hers. She narrowed her eyes, sizing up both of the couples like they were her competition.

Obviously the couples that didn’t bother to show up on time wouldn’t be much to worry about. The couple in the back wouldn’t have a good view of the instructor and might not hear him either. But the couple on her left…

Sakura almost jumped when Karin turned on the sink to wash her hands. Karin looked up at her with some concern, and Sakura smiled back to reassure her that she was fine.

She wasn’t sure why her competitive steak was coming out for something like this, but she knew there was more to it than just nerves. Ever since that conversation she’d had with Naruto...

“ _Ah, I see. Still that early.”_

The words had made her skin sit wrong on her bones, especially when she had thought more about it later. She didn’t like the feeling of others surpassing her in any aspect of her life, yet Naruto was paired up, and even Sai and Ino were together. Then there was Sasuke, out there forging a completely new path on his own. For all she knew, he had found somebody too.

Sakura was always the late bloomer, always the one left to trail behind. Every time she passed a milestone, she would look up and see her peers still so far out in the distance. It was only a matter of time before they disappeared from her line of sight entirely.

The instructor began speaking, and Sakura listened intently, trying to absorb every scrap of knowledge. Every now and then, she caught her eyes drifting to her date.

_Karin_.

She was someone who had already been through so much in life. Would she think Sakura was childish? If Sakura botched their attempt at the recipe, would that indicate that she still hadn’t learned to manage the balance between her work life and home life?

As soon as the instructor let the class get started, Sakura had already analyzed the most efficient way to cook their meal.

“You get the utensils, and I’ll get the ingredients,” she directed Karin, dashing off before receiving a response.

Most of the other groups were still lingering by their own stations, pouring over the recipe cards that the chef had handed out mid-lecture. The couple that Sakura had scoped out earlier as likely the most competent both made their way to pick up ingredients together. Sakura almost laughed at them. Didn’t they know it would be a waste of time for the two of them to be working on the same thing?

She grabbed a large bowl and began filling it with the necessary spices they would need. The spices were all going to be added together at the same time anyway, so she didn’t need to take any effort to keep them separated. When the last star anise and licorice root went into the bowl, she hurried back to her station to drop off the spices so she could return for the daikon, beef, and the rest of the items they needed.

Karin had just set a large stock pot of water on the stove to boil when Sakura finally finished bringing over all of the necessary ingredients.

“That was fast,” Karin remarked, smiling and looking up from under her lashes, “So, the first step is—”

“Actually, it’ll be faster if I work on making the noodles and you focus on the broth. They both take the same amount of time to simmer or rest, and in that time we can clean up everything.”

The smile on Karin’s face twisted with confusion.

“Ah—okay…?”

Sakura grabbed one of the bowls that Karin had brought over, and dumped in the mixture of flour and salt she’d gathered earlier. Slowly, she began to add in the water while she mixed the forming dough. She followed the instructions to the letter, her hands getting lost in the methodical rhythm. Only when she heard Karin calling her name did she realize that she had finished making all of the noodles and was kneading a rag against the counter.

“What? Sorry!”

Karin took a step back at Sakura’s outburst, then laughed softly. She held up a washcloth innocently.

“You have some flour on your face. Do you mind if I…?”

“Oh! Um, sure.”

Karin wiped at her check with the damp rough cloth. When she was done, Sakura touched the spot with her fingers. Her skin was flushed and dewy.

“Thanks, um...”

She looked around and noticed that most of the other couples were still mixing, chopping, stirring. Even the couple directly across from them was still in the process of cutting and pulling their noodles.

Despite the fact that Karin and her would finish cooking first, the tight rattle in Sakura’s chest didn’t subside. Instead, she felt stupid, like a child who’d missed every class and then failed the final. She looked at the steaming pot of broth on the stove and then down at the counter where her noodles had been. She looked up with alarm when she saw that they were no longer there.

“I put them in the refrigerator to rest. You were really in the zone,” Karin explained.

The heat on her face sunk into her skin, injecting an embarrassed warmth into her veins. She’d gotten so caught up in what she was doing that Karin probably felt ignored.

She really was an inexperienced novice at this kind of thing…

“Sorry, I, uh—”

Karin broke into a mischievous grin, and pushed her glasses up on the bridge of her nose.

“Hey, this is no time to slack off now. According to your plan, this is the optimal time to wash the dishes.”

Soon it became apparent that Sakura was too tongue tied to response coherently, so Karin took the lead. She handed Sakura a dry towel and stepped up to the sink.

“I’ll wash and you dry.”

~~

After the class ended, Karin hadn’t wanted the date to end, and she was thrilled when Sakura agreed to walk around the village with her. Being with Sakura was easy and made her feel like she was slipping into a pool of confidence that she didn’t know she had been stashing away. It was only when they were apart that Karin began to imagine all the ways that she could wreck the bond between them.

She thought the date had gone well, their dinner had ended up delicious, but Sakura had seemed a little distracted the whole time. At first, Karin thought it might be nerves, same as her. But as the night went on, Karin’s stomach began to growl, and it wasn’t from hunger.

They ended up sitting at some table and chairs for a cafe that had already closed for the night. Now that the moon was rising higher in the sky, there were less people walking about. The wind swirled sandy apparitions through the streets, accompanied only by the sounds of closing doors and keys clicking locks shut.

Karin gazed at Sakura, who was once again made pale by the light of the moon. There was the slightest crease in the corner of her mouth that suggested a frown. Her chakra was tight like a trip wire.

“Something on your mind?” Karin prompted.

Guilt flashed across Sakura’s face for a split second, but she shoved it away with a closed mouth smile. She hadn’t exactly been wringing her hands, but she had been fidgeting, and now she took her hair down from her ponytail and smoothed in down. Karin watched as her long slender fingers combed through her short pink bob.

“It’s nothing,” Sakura lied.

Karin looked away, back towards the dusty figures floating down the road. Every now and then the dim lighting would cause her to mistake a shadow for a ghost. She sighed slowly, the wind stealing away her breath and the last of her energy for the day.

Even a non-sensory type ninja could have been able to tell that Sakura wasn’t telling the truth, and Karin felt dejected that the Leaf shinobi didn’t want to share. She wondered if Sakura didn’t fully trust her, and with sinking clarity, she realized that while Sakura had held Karin’s life in her hands at least twice, the opposite had never been true.

_Sakura never needed saving. Maybe it was more accurate to say that she never let herself be saved. If that were the case, maybe she felt it would be weak to talk about what was bothering her?_

Whatever the reason, Karin wasn’t going to push her to talk about it if she didn’t want to. Instead, she leaned back in the cold metal chair and stared up at the sky. The moon was just a thin sliver of light, which meant Karin could enjoy looking at the surrounding expanse of stars. Ever since the war, seeing a full moon made her uneasy.

“If it’s about Kido...or Sasuke...don’t worry about them. I’ve got their chakra signatures on lock now, so I can pinpoint where they are in a flash,” Karin added.

She heard Sakura shuffling next to her, but she didn’t look over. The outline of Suna’s smooth architecture against the scattered beads of light was different than most city skylines she’d witnessed while traveling through Wind Country.

“No, it’s not that...Actually, you know, about Kido...I was thinking about the new mental health clinics we’ve been opening at the hospitals, and how they might prevent future cases like his from happening...”

Karin looked over now. Her head was still full of twinkling, and when she saw the determined expression on Sakura’s face, she felt a bright rush make its way to her heart.

“It almost makes all those boring Iwa sensitivity meetings worth it, doesn’t it?” she asked.

Sakura’s eyes met hers, and with their gravity, drew all of Karin’s attention. Unconsciously, she leaned forward, closer to the ethereal kunoichi haloed in starlight. Sakura’s smile hooked her through her heart and tugged her closer. In the next moment, the same lips which formed that magnetic smile were on hers, gentle and so utterly devastating. The moment they were gone, Karin felt a stern ache warn her not to move any farther away.

“Sa—”

She could barely breathe her name before the woman was in her lap, holding either side of her face with both hands, and pressing their lips back together. Karin inhaled deeply, trying to take everything in at once. Sakura’s sweet flowery scent, the weight of her body against Karin’s, the firm and steady grasp of her skilled surgeon hands guiding Karin exactly where she needed to be.

The sensory input of someone so close to her was almost too much. Her mind’s information center struggled to parse the overwhelming influx of data—Sakura’s elevated heartbeat, her increased respiration and body temperature, the crackling of her chakra under her skin like static. Coupled with the same changes in her own body’s functioning, Karin nearly passed out.

But the sensation was too addictive to miss, and even Karin’s overloaded brain knew that. Her attention to everything outside of the two of them began to waver and finally collapsed when she felt Sakura’s fingers slide from her face to her neck and dig in. At some point Karin had wrapped her arms around Sakura’s waist, and she squeezed them ever closer. Chests pressed together, their hearts took turns tapping out the same rhythm.

As the moment went on and she grew light-headed, she felt a desire deep within her rising to the surface. Her tongue slipped past Sakura’s to caress the roof of her mouth. It was almost uncomfortable to reach so far, but the thought of being deep within Sakura like that was irresistible. Hot white heat trembled through her core and buzzed around the two lightning strike scars that Sakura had healed.

Other images flashed through her mind, and she spiraled further into their tantalizing heat. Her imagination swept to places other than the public area they were currently in, and the want devoured her inside until she was trembling. She clutched her hands into fists. When Sakura pulled away to breathe, Karin followed, pulling at her lips with her own, reluctant to let go.

Sakura laughed against Karin’s teeth. The sound cracked Karin’s trance just enough for her to sit back so the both of them could get air into their lungs. Her chest was incredibly hot and tight, and the cool desert air was soothing as she breathed deep.

Sakura shifted, and then pulled farther away, wiggling out of Karin’s arms and getting up. The release of pressure from Sakura’s weight against her sent a cold jolt through her, and Karin sat up straight and righted her skewed glasses. The delicious tingles that had been swarming her insides suddenly morphed into sharp jabs of fear.

_Had she gone too far? Was that not what Sakura intended?_ _Did she regret it already? Was Karin just that bad at kissing?_

Sakura was smoothing out the bottom of her qipao-style dress. The next time she looked up at Karin, she was wearing such a blatant self-assured smirk that all of Karin’s doubts were immediately squashed.

“Ah?” Karin intoned, unable to form a more complex question.

“It’s getting late and I have a double shift tomorrow, starting early...”

“…”

“It’s just, I...I...if I get carried away, and…”

Karin stood up onto her toes and stretched her arms over her head. The pull in her muscles felt good, and so did Sakura’s eyes on her as she moved. The medi-nin’s halting explanation came to an end, and Karin shook out her limbs and faced her date. Despite the darkness, everything around her seemed so much more in focus. She’d only been in Suna a few weeks, but she felt like she knew where everything was. This place was familiar to her. The nervousness she’d had only a few hours ago was a stranger she wouldn’t meet again.

“It’s fine if you have to go now,” Karin said plainly, and then, so Sakura couldn’t protest, she added, “I thought tonight went pretty well, how about you?”

“Yeah!” Sakura squeaked, surprise evident in her tone. Then, she smiled. “Well enough to want to do it again.”

“Which part?” Karin asked, and because the situation called for it and her confidence was still running high, she gave Sakura a devilish grin.

The hitch in her pulse and the openness of Sakura’s laughter was all the answer that Karin needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They made Lanzhou beef noodle soup and wow I really want some now ( ; _ ; )


	17. Chapter 17

The days at work flew by, packed with meetings about Iwa, planning sessions with Shizune, performance evaluations for the staff under her supervision, paperwork, more paperwork, and her regular rounds of administering medicine and performing surgery. The next day that Sakura had off, she wanted nothing more than to lay in bed and rest, but she didn’t want to lose her momentum. She had a long list of household chores that she’d been ignoring all week, and she had to return her overdue library books, train, and meet Karin to play cards with Amai and some of the other Rotation staff.

So, when her alarm went off before the sun came up, she pushed herself out of bed, got dressed, ate breakfast—which according to Inner Sakura was the most important meal of the day—and set about to complete the neatly arranged task list she had drawn up before passing out the night before.

The chores went by quickly, as they were straightforward and mindless enough to do. Sakura had planned her day out by the minute, and as she was on her way to the training room she had booked, she was pleased to see that she was ahead of schedule. It was during her training session that she came across the first snag of her otherwise flawless timetable.

All of the reading she had been doing lately to suss out whether Karin’s Heal Bite was an incomplete jutsu had reminded her of an old project of her own that she had started right before she’d taken the jounin exam. In her preparation for the test, she’d read somewhere that some past proctors would not pass a student unless proficiency could be shown in taijutsu, ninjutsu, and genjutsu. Sakura was fine with the first two, and she knew she was good at recognizing and breaking out of genjutsu, but she didn’t know how to cast one.

After asking Tsunade for advice and being assigned a mission to the Land of Vegetables, Sakura entered her jounin exam with a shaky understanding of a flower art genjutsu that she’d learned from one of Tsunade’s old friends. To her credit, she practiced the jutsu several times before the test, and she had been sure that she could have pulled it off if asked. Regardless, she was not asked to perform genjutsu during her exam, and she had forgotten all about her goal to master that jutsu.

Until recently.

The confrontation with Kido, Naruto’s presence, Sasuke’s lack of presence, Sai and Ino’s bond of their own, Karin…

Karin somehow having the strength and the chakra to incapacitate Kido while bleeding out from a wound that should have killed her twice.

If Sakura wanted to keep up, she would have to stay on her toes. Mastering this genjutsu would be one more knot in the tenuous thread connecting her to her friends.

So when the petals spun her own eyes in dizzying circles until her head throbbed with pain and frustration, when the illusion of darkness she was trying to create lengthened her shadow like the sun was going down inside the artificially lit training room, when Sasuke’s words “you’re annoying” echoed each of her labored breaths as she pushed on with her training, piece by piece she buckled until the pressure forced her to the ground, eyes wide and unblinking and frozen with the fear that maybe she’d already peaked.

The next person who had booked the training room knocked on the door, and Sakura realized with a nauseating rush of shame that she not only had exceeded her time limit and was now off track of her schedule, but that in all that time she had made no progress with the jutsu. Pushing off the sticky sweat-slick mat, she mentally scrambled to rearrange her schedule to fit everything that she needed to do in the remaining time she had in the day. With grim resolve, she wiped the sweat from her brow and weighed the consequences of skipping showering.

She pushed her way out of the training room with excess force. Her shoulder clipped the person waiting for their reservation, and she was too pissed off with herself for her failure—and with them for highlighting her failure—to apologize. She made her way to the lockers where she grabbed her bag of books, stared wrathfully at the showers, and finally exited the training center, damp and gross with a similarly disheveled attitude.

She climbed atop the roof of the building and set course for the library, jumping from rooftop to rooftop. Unlike Konoha, most roofs in Suna were sloped, which made the journey take longer than she wanted. She almost slipped to what would have been a debilitating injury twice, and the sun was merciless against the skin that her training clothes bared. She was overheated, out of patience, a little sunburned, and her chakra felt like it was coming off her body in spikes when an ANBU stopped her.

“They’re not that overdue, are they?” she tried, gesturing to the satchel of books across her shoulders.

The cloth covering the ANBU’s face did not betray any hint of amusement, nor did their flinty black eyes.

“You’re needed at the hospital for an emergency. Now.”

Without waiting for an answer, the ANBU flickered away.

Sakura gripped the strap of her satchel tighter, the rough nylon fabric scraping the underside of her fingers. The smile she’d worn in greeting sloughed away to reveal gritted teeth and a tightly clenched jaw. With a measured tread, she steered herself towards the building where she spent most of her waking hours.

The first surgery during which Sakura had ever performed Healing Resuscitation Regeneration Technique on her own had been against Tsunade’s recommendation. At the time, Sakura was still having trouble balancing her regular chakra flow with the stored pool of chakra that would eventually become her Hundred Healings mark. Ino had asked her to join Team 10 for the upcoming chuunin exams, since they were a member short with Shikamaru having already passed, and Sakura had turned her down.

Much like now, she hadn’t been feeling great about herself, but she put that all aside when responsibility called. She shed any external thoughts as she washed her hands, only allowing herself to be filled with the words of hundreds of tomes that she had read under Tsunade’s direction. The sharp smell of antiseptic was as familiar as an encouraging hand on her shoulder as she geared up. By the time she had been briefed on the situation and stepped into the surgery room, her senses were attuned to only seek out information regarding the patient’s vitals.

This kind of surgery, Healing Resuscitation Regeneration, never became any easier. Every single time she saw it through to completion, she came away from it feeling like she’d torn off a part of her soul and used it to mend the person under her care. She’d thought after the first time it would get easier, or that she would at least get used to the feeling. The only difference her experience made was that if such a surgery was planned, she would know to stock up on energy food pills.

As she entered the surgery room this time, she saw the telltale four pointed star seal on the ground with the patient in its center. Five medical ninja stood around the patterned formula. The technique was usually done with multiple shinobi because of how much time, chakra, and precision it required. Sakura was one of few who could perform the jutsu on her own.

She stepped up to the medic leading the procedure from one of the points of the star. Ameno’s face was white as milk, nearly transparent, and dripping with sweat. When Sakura tapped her on the shoulder to relive her, her hand stung as if she’d been shocked. Ameno’s chakra was so low that at the contact her body had tried to siphon some of Sakura’s healing energy.

The Suna medical supervisor wasn’t able to stand. She crawled out of her position, her face fierce, still keeping the jutsu constant until Sakura could take her place. As soon as Sakura replaced her, she collapsed on the floor and Sakura felt the tug of the jutsu as it vacuumed up her chakra. The contribution of chakra from the other four medi-nin was weak, as they seemed to be at their limits as well. According to what she’d been told before entering the room, the support staff had already swapped out once.

The first time she’d performed this technique alone, she’d succeeded. She caught a glimpse of Tsunade before passing out, and the pride in her mentor’s face was more fulfilling than the several hours of sleep she had after. She’d decided then that she would join Ino and Chouji for the chuunin exams, which she would go on to pass. The day was somewhat of a turning point in her life.

She wasn’t always successful. There were subsequent instances where the patient didn’t make it. The first time she’d lost a patient on her own would be relived through her nightmares, probably for the rest of her life. Tsunade and Shizune had been there to offer her guidance, but in the end, her pain was her own, and it was pain that every medical ninja had to bear.

One of the four remaining support staff wavered, then slumped over, their chakra receding from the healing web between them. Sakura scooted forward, pumping more chakra into the intricate pattern beneath them to make up for the sudden loss. She could tell based on the patient’s status and the constitution of the remaining shinobi that she would be the last one standing.

She hoped she would be enough.

~~

Her skin felt dry as old parchment, and if she had any capacity for emotion at the moment, she might have been surprised when the Suna sunshine didn’t light her up the minute she left the hospital. Hours had gone by, and judging by the angle of the sun in the sky, the library might have already closed.

Her bookbag thumped against her thigh as she walked unhurriedly through the stale moisture-sucking air. She felt as though every last drop of life was being wrung from her. Inside her head was only the low rustling of ashes being jostled.

The surgery had been a success, and the patient had survived. By all accounts, Sakura should have had some ember of joy over that accomplishment. She found instead that she didn’t even have the energy to smolder. She had burned out before the procedure even ended.

Sakura did not understand the origin of the hollow feeling that was numbing her to the rest of the world. When she tried to puzzle it out, her thoughts would disappear into a vast empty nothingness and return with echoes of criticism.

_The procedure couldn’t have been that hard. It certainly wasn’t impossible, otherwise the patient wouldn’t have survived. So why did she feel as drained as she did? The first stage of the surgery had been done for her already. She should have been able to finish the rest without breaking a sweat. She’d done much more complex surgeries before, and alone. She’d kept Naruto alive when his body had given up! So this...she should have a stronger mettle than this..._

Her stomach was tight and cold, and she realized that she hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since early this morning. Though it was now nearing late afternoon, she wasn’t able to muster much concern. _Not good_ , was the extent of her feelings on the matter.

She arrived at the library to see a slightly affronted librarian locking the front door. Beside her stood Karin, who was clutching her own stack of books and arguing with the impatient employee.

At the sight of the red-haired kunoichi, her stomach twinged with a feeling she couldn’t identify. For the first time since she left the hospital, she stopped dead in her tracks and just watched. She had a weird hazy instinct to just turn around and walk away.

“I just need to return these, really, it would only be one minute. I’ll just drop them on the desk!”

“We kindly ask that you use the slot beside the door and drop the books in there.”

“Like hell! What if they get stuck? What if someone reaches in and takes them out? I can’t see where they go after I put them in, how do I know they won’t get lost? I’m already getting charged a late fee, I don’t want to have to pay for the whole book if it doesn’t get returned correctly and shows up in the system as lost. These are hardback!”

“Then you can wait until we reopen—”

“That’s two days from now! That’s an extra three ryou per day per book!”

Sakura resolved that if she had come this far, she might as well return her books. She stepped up to the drop box and deposited her books one by one. The dull _thunk_ of each book striking the metal of the chute drew the attention of the women bickering nearby, and their disagreement came to an abrupt end.

“Sakura? Hey, Sakura!”

Karin, with all her Uzumaki energy, bounded over with the same enthusiasm that Sakura should have been feeling. Instead, the only sliver of emotion she could pick up from behind the immense wall of numbness was fear. She didn’t want Karin to see her in such a weak state. The barrier keeping all of her emotions locked down was thick, but it was also brittle, and it was only a matter of time before Sakura cracked.

She couldn’t let Karin see her be so emotional.

“ _You’re annoying.”_

_She’d tried everything to get him to stay, but they both knew she had no leverage. Her skill was far underdeveloped compared to his, and the only thing she had left was the truth in her heart. And he hadn’t wanted to hear it._

“Sakura?”

She dropped the last book in the chute and closed the hinge. Staring at the brushed metal, she didn’t know what to do with herself now.

“Hey...”

Karin’s hand, warm and strong, closed around hers.

“Come on, let’s get outta here.”

~~

The door to Karin’s apartment caught on a box of laundry soap that she hadn’t felt like putting away since buying it yesterday after work. Forcing her way through the door, she picked up the box and opened the door all the way for Sakura to come in. An embarrassed smile floated to her face as she realized the rest of her apartment was just as chaotic.

“Ehehe...sorry for the mess, I wasn’t expecting anyone or I would have cleaned up a little...”

Sakura didn’t seemed to mind as she took off her shoes and stepped into Karin’s tiny studio living space. In fact, she didn’t really seem to take note of anything as she drifted into the bedroom and sat down on the floor with her back against the wall. Light from the window above her just barely grazed the top of her head as she pulled her knees into her chest.

Karin immediately started picking up the various scrolls and books that were lying open in a circle around a pillow and two empty containers of instant ramen. She felt the silence was drawing more attention to her untidiness, so she found herself filling it with idle chatter.

“Ah, I knew I should have returned those books during my lunch break today, but that bastard Mikoshi wouldn’t stop talking my ear off about some reunion he had with his teammates. Jeez, you know, between him and you, Naruto, and Sai, I almost had the urge to write a letter to Suigetsu. But, hell, what would I even say to him? Surely one bastard in my life at a time is enough...”

She crouched down next to where Sakura was and tried to catch her eyes. Sakura kept her blank expression fixed forward.

“Anyway, are you hungry?”

Sakura’s stomach made some kind of strangled gurgling sound, as Karin took that as an affirmative answer.

“Me too...though I’ve only got instant ramen. Hope that’s okay...”

Sakura nodded, almost imperceptibly.

Karin made her way over to her tiny kitchen, plucked two packages of instant noodles out of her cupboards, and set a pot of water on the stove to boil. She stared at the grime-covered stove top with unfocused eyes, lost in thought about what might be upsetting Sakura.

Ever since the incident with Kido, there had been something troubling Sakura. The obvious cause, of course, was the incident with Kido, which was horrible and traumatic enough for anyone to be out of sorts for a while. For some inexplicable reason though, Karin felt like that experience was only part of what was on Sakura’s mind.

She thought back to the to the troubled look on Sakura’s face the night that they’d kissed. Sakura had denied that her preoccupation was because of Kido or Sasuke, and Karin hadn’t detected any dishonesty in her statement. She supposed she could have misinterpreted due to her own nervousness about the date, but that theory seemed unlikely due to the weight of the aura that had cloaked the medi-nin.

As she brought over two bowls of steaming ramen and then two glasses of water, she remembered how Sakura had evaded her question when she’d asked what was wrong. Sitting across from Sakura picking up her own bowl of ramen, she decided to ask again.

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

Sakura uncurled herself so that she was sitting cross-legged, and she reached for her own bowl of ramen and thanked Karin before replying.

“No.”

Something was coming together in her mind, but Karin couldn’t quite make out what it was just yet.

As they started eating, she backed off and tried a different approach.

“So, it looked like you were returning books about chakra seals and healing. Trying to improve upon Godaime Hokage’s Hundred Healings Mark?”

Sakura took a break from inhaling her ramen—she appeared to be a lot hungrier than Karin realized—to respond.

“No, I was actually...well I just wanted to see if there was any information about the Heal Bite...”

Sakura glanced up at Karin, a trace of guilt seeping through her features. “I probably should have just asked you about it first, but I didn’t want to upset you...”

Noodles hung out of Karin’s mouth as she furrowed her brow in confusion. “It’s fine, but, uh, why?”

Sakura eyed the plain wooden chopsticks in her hand intently. “Well, I know you said you didn’t know much about how it worked, so I was wondering if maybe it was an incomplete jutsu, and if there was any way to alter it so that you didn’t have to get bitten.”

This unexpected turn of the conversation flooded Karin with powerful waves of conflicting emotions that she would rather analyze some other time, preferably a time where Sakura’s own emotions weren’t running high. She let the information sweep over her entirely, allowing the crest a long span of time to come crashing down.

“I can do Mystical Palm Technique too, I just never saw the point in practicing it since Heal Bite came naturally and took effect almost instantly. But who knows, maybe if I had been practicing all these years, I’d be a lot better at purposefully directing my own healing chakra,” Karin reasoned.

She looked up at Sakura with a faint smile. Even though she wasn’t going to process what all of this meant to her right now, her intuition was to interpret the act as thoughtful.

“If you would want to help me practice Mystical Palm sometime, I...yeah. That would be—yeah, I’d like that.”

Sakura smiled back, and now that the attention was shifted away from her, the tension in her body began to dissolve. More pieces fell into place in Karin’s mind, but there was still some crucial block that was preventing her from seeing the big picture. The more she struggled to wring the conclusion from her brain, the deeper the solution seemed to hide. She chewed with vigorous frustration, knowing that she was so close to understanding.

Across from her, Sakura glanced at the alarm clock on the floor next to Karin’s bed and did a double take.

“We’re late for Amai’s party! I’m so sorry, I guess I wasted a lot of time—”

Karin regarded the clock carelessly, and set her chopsticks down on top of her finished bowl of ramen.

“There’s always next time,” she said easily, “I don’t think we should go.”

“Why?!” Sakura looked at her sharply, almost betrayed.

Karin didn’t understand her reaction, but instead of feeling confusion, she just felt the gears of her mind grinding up against her mental block. She tried to dismiss her annoyance and continue on the conversation as carefully as she could.

“It might be better if we just stayed in and relaxed...”

Sakura finally finished her ramen, though she kept the chopsticks clutched in her hands. “I know I seemed upset earlier, but I’m fine now! Really, it was nothing. Just something stupid.”

Karin pushed her and Sakura’s empty bowls to the side and shuffled closer, taking both of Sakura’s hands in hers. The Leaf kunoichi’s hands were rough and dry and calloused. They were hard-working hands that knew how to pack a punch and had seen a lot of action over the years. They were hands that fought, hands that saved, hands that exuded power as they held onto Karin’s. They were not hands familiar with receiving support.

Suddenly, Karin understood.

“Sakura, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. And we can go to Amai’s if you want to. But, _I_ don’t want you to overlook your own feelings here. It’s not weak to recharge every now and then. It’s not a bad thing to accept help from people that want to help you.”

Sakura was staring at their intertwined hands with such intensity that Karin felt her skin burning. She could sense Sakura’s chakra winding itself up into tight knots until finally there was a ‘ _pop_ ’ and tangled webs of energy lashed out indiscriminately in every direction. Sakura bowed her head and leaned forward, her shoulders shaking as she let herself be vulnerable.

Karin released her hands so that she could pull Sakura into a hug. Holding her tight and secure, Karin could feel the jagged energy of stress and the coarse grate of self-doubt bleeding out from Sakura’s center. With her fingers, she combed through Sakura’s hair and traced circles across her back. She let Sakura let herself be comforted.

They stayed in for the rest of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY real talk about book drops though! And postboxes on sidewalks! I don't know why, but I've always been suspicious of them. I hate having to put my books or my mail in them. I always feel like someone is going to mistake them for a trashcan (or maybe just be purposely malicious) and put their trash (especially something like a drink which would ruin the mail and/or books) inside the flap. So whenever I can I try to go into the post office to send mail, or into the library to return my books. But since COVID, that has been kind of impossible, so I've just been nervously using these drop off bins.   
> Anyway I feel like Karin would share my opinion on this.


	18. Chapter 18

Karin vaguely knew that Naruto was on some kind of vacation in Suna, but she didn’t know how long he’d be staying or what he was getting up to during his break. She hadn’t really expected to see much of him after the ANBU wrapped up their investigation, and she certainly hadn’t expected him to seek her out.

“Yo, Karin!”

She looked up from the oranges she had been inspecting and watched as the hyperactive blond raced towards her like he was running barefoot over hot coals. Putting down the fruit, she stepped to the side of the fruit stand, in hopes that he wouldn’t crash into it and cause her to have to eat bruised citrus for the next month.

Miraculously, he managed to come to a complete stop in front of her without barreling anything over. Without preamble, he shouted, “Did you know we’re related?!”

Though, the way he yelled made it seem like he was presenting a fact and not actually asking a question. Karin felt a headache coming on.

_Damn it! How did he find out? Sakura must have mentioned it…_

Karin didn’t see the big deal, but she knew enough about Naruto to know that everything was a big deal to him. Unfortunately, she really didn’t have the patience to deal with his insanity today since she had planned on completing several errands before her work week started the following day.

“ _Distantly_ related,” she corrected him, though her efforts were futile and she knew it.

“Ah, Karin-neechan, come on, don’t be like that.”

He threw an arm around her shoulders and she was too surprised by this new form of address to shake him off.

“‘Neechan’?” she asked, horrified.

“Neesan?” He amended with some embarrassment, though still grinning.

Karin did pull away from him at that point.

“I don’t have time for this,” she muttered.

Realistically, she did have some time to spare, but she didn’t have the slightest clue what he wanted from her. She felt no loyalty towards the Uzumaki clan, in fact, she felt some resentment towards it. When Uzushio fell, its citizens were on their own to flee or become prisoners of war. No one had gone with Karin and her mother to make sure they were alright. And in all the years that Karin lived in Kusa, no one had ever come to check on her. Even if it were the case that every other Uzumaki had died already, she still couldn’t forgive a village with such poor planning that would allow for its immediate and utter annihilation.

And if he wanted someone to play happy family with, he had come to the wrong person. Karin was sure she didn’t know what it meant to be a family. She’d only ever had her mother, and their time together hadn’t been long.

“Aw c’mon!” he protested, falling to her side as she turned back to the stack of oranges. “Don’t be like that. I know you’ve gotta be nice since you’re dating Sakura-chan! Well...come to think of it, she did like Sasuke for a while, and he’s always pretty crabby...”

“Sakura told you about...us?” Karin asked, before she could think better of it.

Naruto looked smug. “Well, yeah, of course. We’re best friends, you know?”

Karin considered his claim as she scooped up three oranges and placed them in her basket. She moved over to a display of watermelons, and Naruto followed, apparently perfectly content to watch her shop for groceries.

Sighing, she turned to him.

“Okay, what do you want?”

His face froze for a second and then he frowned. He didn’t like being talked down to, and Karin respected that. She felt bad for being so short with him, even if he was being kind of ridiculous.

“Sorry, I just don’t understand. I doubt you wanna stick around while I buy fruit. Or for any of the other boring chores I have on my to-do list for today. _I’m_ not on vacation.”

His frown was gone as quickly as it came, and then he was staring her down with fierce determined eyes and a small smile, like she’d just issued him a challenge that he knew he could win.

“If I help you do all that stuff, then you’ll be done twice as fast!” he reasoned. “Then you’ll have plenty of time.”

She worked through his offer, not seeing a downside. She’d like to be done with her chores earlier, and if he was going to do half of them, she would be completing the same list in less time with less effort on her part. Really, it was to her benefit to accept.

“Alright,” she agreed, smirking. “You’re on.”

~~

Sakura brushed her hair behind her ear and smiled at herself in her bathroom mirror. She still had a few hours before her shift, which began in the afternoon today, but her body wasn’t allowing her to lay around any longer. She opened the tap of her sink and cupped her hands. Cool water pooled in her palms and slipped through the cracks in her fingers, and she splashed her face twice before grabbing a towel and drying off.

Most of her shift was booked with meetings, and while that wasn’t necessarily exciting, it certainly wasn’t as stressful as performing emergency surgery. With Iwa’s new hospital approaching completion, it was time to prepare the Rotation to move from Suna to Iwa. When the Rotation had initially moved from Konoha to Suna, Sakura hadn’t realized how much the strong alliance between the villages had an effect on the ease of transition. Iwa had historically operated independent of the other villages, and the strong isolationist culture in the Hidden Stone had generated many more obstacles than Sakura had expected. Though, as the date drew closer, the Rotation supervisory team had worked hard to smooth over as many bumps in the road as possible.

_Speaking of bumps in the road…_

Sakura picked up her hairbrush and pulled it through her hair a few more times before tying it back and re-positioning her hitai-ate. When she looked in the mirror again, she tried to find comfort in her tidy appearance, but flutters of worry were already tickling the inside of her stomach.

Today the supervisory team would vote on the path that Rotation would take to travel from Suna to Iwa. It was important that Rotation arrived before the new wing of the hospital opened so that everyone could take their time to find housing, settle in, meet the Iwa staff…

Though, at the moment, Sakura was more concerned about the actual route of their journey. Looking at a map, it was clear to see that the most logical path involved traveling through Kusa. Sakura knew Karin had misgivings about the Grass Village. She wasn’t sure how Karin might react if she was to pass through there again.

Turning away from the mirror and stepping out of the bathroom to look for her uniform, Sakura sighed. She tried to let her nervousness pass through her, but most of it just sat like a cold rock in the pit of her stomach. Even memories of Karin holding her could not dispel her bundles of nerves, although they did help a little. She remembered how afraid she’d been to come apart in front of Karin like that, how embarrassed she thought she’d feel after, but even as it had happened, she didn’t feel that way.

Sakura didn’t know what to think now. She was glad she could trust Karin to see her in a vulnerable state. She was glad that Karin didn’t think of her as weak because of it. Clearly, all of the stress was getting to her, and she needed to take steps to deal with it in a better way. She was considering making an appointment with someone from Ino’s team. She didn’t want Karin to feel compelled to take care of her mental state like Naruto had after Sasuke left.

After putting on her uniform and gathering her things, Sakura left her apartment to go to the hospital that she had campaigned to reorganize specifically to include mental health services. The irony was not lost on her.

~~

“And then, just as he was about to take off his mask to eat the ramen, Shikamaru, Ino, and Chouji just barged in and blocked our view of him! By the time we pushed them out of the way, he had eaten everything and put his mask back on. To this day, I still have no idea what he’s hiding behind there...”

True to his word, Naruto had helped Karin with all of the busywork she had planned for the day, though he had done so while recounting his entire life story to her. At first, she thought for sure that she was going to end up strangling him before lunchtime. On the contrary, she found that she didn’t mind so much as he prattled on. Whether it was because he was a good storyteller, or because his life was so bizarre and amusing, or because of his endearing quirkiness, Karin wasn’t sure of the reason.

By the time they were done all of her chores, Karin was in such a good mood that she decided to treat Naruto to ramen. He put away much more ramen than she initially expected, which made her silently grateful for the steady income that her job at the lab provided her. Other than his incredible appetite, Karin was also surprised to find herself talking about her own past.

As much as Naruto blabbered, Karin predicted that he wouldn’t be the best listener, but he proved her wrong as she opened up to him. He became irate when she talked about her time in Kusa, which she could tell by the way his chakra howled and swirled under his skin like a furious maelstrom. The storm inside him died back a bit when she mentioned Orochimaru, though his eyes turned glassy and hard like lapis. When she brought up Sasuke, he seemed as conflicted as she felt.

“So, I guess he made a mess of things with his Leaf teammates too,” she observed.

Naruto was quick to defend him. “No! He just...he’s just Sasuke.”

As simple of a statement as it was, Karin couldn’t disagree. A tense moment passed in silence, and Karin reflected on the sentiment, feeling like she’d gained some kind of insight about the Uchiha.

Sasuke _was_ Sasuke, and there were core elements of him that would never change. Just as Naruto was the same gregarious knucklehead that’d she’d met years ago. If she was waiting for Sasuke to apologize to her for the way he had acted back then, she would be waiting forever.

It felt nice to acknowledge that.

“Anyway, thanks for lunch. So what’s next?” Naruto pressed, breaking her out of her sidetracked thoughts.

“Well, actually, I’ve done everything I needed to so I was just going to go home and study...”

Naruto’s face fell into a grimace. He pulled at the collar of his jacket, like the fiery heat of the day had finally gotten to him. “Study…?”

_If she’d known it would be this easy to get rid of him..._

She bit back a laugh. No, that was unfair. As unexpected as it was, she actually had enjoyed his company.

“What’s with the face? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” Karin observed, leaning closer into Naruto’s space.

The Leaf ninja flinched and backed away. It was fascinating witness the rare occurrence of someone else making Naruto uncomfortable. From what Karin knew of the young man, it was usually the other way around.

“I’m on vacation,” he mumbled.

Karin refrained from teasing him any further.

“You’re on vacation from studying?” she asked.

Truly, the Leaf village was an enigma to her.

He shook his head, then shrugged. “Well, it’s just...the chuunin exams are coming up in a few months, so Iruka-sensei has really been riding my ass lately...”

He trailed off into unintelligible grumbling.

Karin blinked in surprise, primarily because that meant Naruto was somehow still a genin (how could a village as laid back as Konoha not make him an honorary jounin after the war? Was this really the hill that the Leaf had chosen to die on?), secondarily because how had he even been approved for this vacation if him taking the chuunin exams was such a big fucking deal, and third because Naruto, who had faced Madara Uchiha, and Sasuke Uchiha for that matter, with no second thoughts was scared of some dusty old texts.

Her ears must have been smoking with how furiously her brain was working to make some sense of this information. In the end, she chose to ignore the endless spring of questions pooling in her mind. She could always ruminate on these theories late at night while she was trying to sleep.

“Well, it’s not that kind of studying. I mean, I’m doing some independent research on summoning jutsu,” she explained.

The unease in his expression was exchanged for disbelief.

“Eh...why…?”

Assuming he would follow, Karin stepped out from under the awning of the ramen shop and began heading towards her apartment. Naruto’s scratchy footsteps behind her confirmed her prediction.

“Back when that Sasuke clone was hanging around the village, I was so confused why I hadn’t been able to sense him, since we should have crossed paths. I started wondering if maybe there was a way he could summon himself, or teleport, into certain areas. That wasn’t what was happening, but I just haven’t been able to shake the idea. On one hand, travel between villages could be so much easier. On the other hand, it might be a huge security risk.”

The breeze blew strands of her hair into her face, and she pushed them away and readjusted her glasses at the same time.

“It’s just bugging me. I feel like I’m so close to figuring out this jutsu that I can’t let it go.”

When she finally turned to gauge Naruto’s reaction, she was unprepared to see him looking thoughtful. He narrowed his eyes and rubbed his chin, and after a few seconds, his eyes snapped wide open and he grinned.

“Oh yeah, I know, that’s like the Hiraishin. My dad could do it!” he exclaimed.

Karin stopped walking and withdrew into her memory of the Fourth Shinobi World War. Yondaime Hokage had been resurrected and had fought with the other previous Hokage against Madara, but she hadn’t really paid any attention to them. Sasuke had been dead set on hurling himself from one reckless stunt to the next, and she felt like if she took her eyes off him for a second that it would be the last she ever saw of him alive. Even after everything, she didn’t want that to happen.

From what little she remembered of the Fourth Hokage, Naruto was his spitting image.

Naruto smiled, almost eager to help her, and his Leaf hitai-ate glinted in the sun. She turned away to rub at her eyes and mentally sift through the various literature she’d consumed since beginning her research on the topic.

None of it had mentioned the Fourth Hokage, which was unsurprising, as she was reading books from Suna’s library after all. If Yondaime Hokage could perform the exact jutsu she had been searching for, then there was a high chance that others knew of such a jutsu but were unable to perform it. Likely, the jutsu was fairly complicated or required an enormous amount of chakra. Maybe both. Maybe it was some kind of hiden jutsu.

She looked at Naruto inquisitively.

“Can you do it too?”

Naruto tilted his head forward and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Ah, well, no. I never tried to learn it, and I don’t know anyone who can do it, but...”

She waited. Each second that passed stacked another question onto the deluge of queries she was doing her best to hold back from spewing all at once.

“Well, my sensei was a student of my dad, so if anyone would know, he might.”

Karin shifted her weight from one foot to the other while she considered her options.

“When are you going back to Konoha again?”

“In three days.”

That was too short notice to take off work and go with him, but it was enough time for her to write a thorough letter detailing all of the questions teeming in her head. Not only that, but if her suspicions were correct and the jutsu was so chakra-intense, she had the perfect test-subject right in front of her.

“Man, you have the creepiest expression on your face right now,” Naruto muttered.

She barely heard him. In her mind, she was already six sentences past ‘Dear Rokudaime Hokage.’

~~

“Sakura, wait up!”

Ino followed after her, blonde hair falling across her face as she rushed along the sterile white tile floors outside the hospital’s main conference room. The fateful meeting to decide the route from Suna to Iwa had been finalized. Rotation would officially be passing through Kusa.

Sakura paused and waited for her friend to catch up. When Ino finally did, she shoved her hair out of the way impatiently and huffed.

“I feel like I haven’t seen you in weeks. I know we’re all busy, but I’m sure you could spare a minute for your best friend...”

Sakura rolled her eyes but smiled.

“Anyway, no offense, but you kind of look like shit.”

Just like that, Ino wore out her welcome.

Sakura turned on her heel, ready to get back to work.

“Wait, wait! Sorry!”

Ino caught the sleeve of the Medi-Team supervisor and prevented her from leaving.

“What I meant to say was that I’m worried about you.”

Slowly, the pink-haired kunoichi exhaled, releasing the tight packet of air that had been trapped in her lungs. She turned to face Ino, whose eyebrows were scrunched as tightly as her lips were pressed together.

“You have dark circles under your eyes. You kept yawning throughout that whole meeting, except when you interrupted Oyone-sensei to argue with her like a cranky child. This move is stressful for all of us. Have you been getting enough sleep?”

Before Sakura could answer, Ino continued.

“Or maybe I’ve got it all wrong. Maybe it’s your girlfriend keeping you up all night?”

Fire spread across Sakura’s cheeks. The next breath she took burned, as if embarrassment was spreading throughout her whole body. She glared at the ground, irritated at her embarrassment and annoyed that Ino always knew what buttons to push to wind her up.

“It’s alright. I can tell you all about Sai—”

Sakura’s head snapped up, her mouth opening in horror. “Please don’t.”

She did not want to think about her teammate in that way in any capacity. Ever.

Her skin was breaking out with goosebumps at just the mere mention of it.

Ino’s wolfish smile softened. “No one would blame you for taking a break. Suna’s hospital is fully staffed, not including Rotation. The work will get done.”

Sakura must not have looked convinced because Ino sighed.

“Also, as I’m sure you know, it’s the duty of a medical ninja in battle to stay off the front lines and to avoid getting killed at all costs. Why? Because a dead medi-nin is no help, and an injured medi-nin won’t be able to perform their work to the best of their ability. I know you want to take care of others, but you have to take care of yourself first.”

Ino clasped both of Sakura’s hands between hers in a sort of pleading gesture. Her brackish aqamarine eyes were unyielding yet earnest. Knowing Ino’s legendary stubbornness, she wasn’t going to let the topic slip away anytime soon. Though, Sakura conceded that her friend had made a valid argument.

Taking a deep breath, Sakura let her head drop back as she rolled her shoulders and stretched her neck. Her upper back was tight and aching like she’d been carrying a backpack full of rocks all day. She tilted her head from side to side in an attempt to loosen her muscles. The strain of the dense fibers flexing and contracting felt good.

“I’ll take it under consideration.”

~~

Sakura left work and headed to Karin’s apartment. She had taken tomorrow off, which she had decided completely on her own and without any influence from Ino. Inner Sakura was calling bullshit, but Sakura was not going to let Ino have this victory, even in her own head.

Regardless, since she didn’t have work tomorrow, she thought it would be nice to surprise her _girlfriend_ with a visit. She didn’t have to be anywhere tomorrow, so if Karin did want to keep her up all night...

She knocked on Karin’s door, sensing Karin’s chakra signature inside, and surprisingly, Naruto’s as well. When Karin called for her to come in, she entered the apartment with growing curiosity which evolved into amusement and outright disbelief at the sight in front of her.

Karin and Naruto were lying on their stomachs on the floor, shoulder to shoulder, each studiously poring over large books with small words and no pictures. For Karin, the scene made sense, but for Naruto—

“Are you willingly reading a book?” Sakura asked, incredulous.

Naruto immediately slammed the book in front of him shut.

“N-no!” he shouted, red-faced. He pushed the closed book away from him as if he didn’t know where it had come from but didn’t want it so close.

Karin looked between the two teammates and snorted, trying to hold in laughter and ultimately failing. She rolled onto her back and held her stomach as she laughed, loud and open, until Sakura and Naruto joined along.

~~

Naruto left the village a few days later, and Karin was part of the small army that had assembled to see him off. She was glad he would be able to get access to documents regarding the Fourth Hokage’s Hiraishin back in Konoha, but she was surprised with herself when she realized she would also miss seeing him around. She earned a few askance looks from the Kazekage and his siblings, and a genuinely bemused look from Sakura as she fussed with Naruto’s hitai-ate, the straps of his backpack, the bandages on his arm...Even Naruto seemed thrown for a loop when she asked him if he’d packed enough food for his journey.

When he finally departed, Sakura and Karin went on a walk through Suna. Karin noticed she had some horrible squirmy feeling in her chest that made her think of caterpillar making its way through an apple. She remembered feeling something similar back when she’d been on Team Taka, whenever she was apart from Sasuke.

Damn. How had that hyperactive loudmouth managed to grow on her so much in so little time?

Beside her, she could feel a heavy atmosphere swirling around Sakura too. She assumed the Leaf kunoichi would be equally, if not more, worried about the welfare of the male Uzumaki.

So, Karin was surprised when, unprompted, Sakura blurted out something else entirely.

“The official route that Rotation is going to take from Suna to Iwa was decided recently, and it passes through Kusa.”

Karin stopped walking, and shook her head as if Sakura’s words had gotten jumbled up in her ears, and she hadn’t processed them correctly. Rotation and the trip to Iwa was so far from her mind that she had a hard time wrapping her head around its abrupt mention.

“Kusa?”

“Kusagakure,” Sakura intoned.

Karin knew she should probably have more feelings about returning the village where she’d grown up. It’d been such a long time since she’d been back, largely because of her own intentional avoidance of its borders. There wasn’t a single positive memory she could think of from the time she spent there. It was only logical that she would feel some kind of way about going back, and yet, at the moment her head was blank.

She almost wished she had some kind of knee-jerk reaction of fear or disgust or sadness, anything really. It would be so much worse for her if the inevitable reaction came later, especially if she were in Kusa at the time. She didn’t want to be caught off guard by that kind of emotional turmoil.

When Sakura didn’t receive the response she had clearly been expecting, her face wrinkled with apprehension.

“I thought you might be...upset,” she said softly.

Karin smiled in spite of herself. “I guess it just hasn’t hit me yet!”

Sakura’s hands—steady, practiced, surgeon hands—trembled at her sides, and it hurt Karin to see it. She took one of Sakura’s hands, tugged her closer, and with her other hand, gripped Sakura’s shoulder. She planted a kiss on Sakura’s cheek, then leaned back just enough to see the verdant brightness of Sakura’s eyes as they widened. With her fingertips, she pushed pink hair behind a reddening ear.

Sakura looped her arms around Karin’s waist, then leaned against her, letting all her breath release.

There wasn’t a need for words, so neither woman spoke. Karin let her fingers comb through Sakura’s soft pink hair as her thoughts receded back into her memories of the Grass Village. Despite all her misgivings for the village and its people, she’d made it out alive and a chuunin to boot. The village of her teenage nightmares hadn’t been able to break her back then. It wouldn’t be able to break her now.

When the moment passed and the two pulled away, Sakura looked at Karin with shining eyes. She wiped at them, then laughed.

“Optimism must be an Uzumaki trait,” she said with a fragile mirth filling her tone.

“Me? Optimistic?” Karin nearly snorted with laughter. The word had never been applied to her, not even by herself. “Foolhardy might be more accurate...”

A solid laugh came from Sakura, and she squeezed Karin’s hand.

“Well I didn’t say it was the _only_ Uzumaki trait...”

They continued walking. They continued holding hands.

Karin didn’t even care to pretend to be insulted by the insinuation. It was still broad daylight out, but Karin looked up at the clear blue sky and knew that even though she couldn’t see them at the moment, there were a million lucky stars shining down on her.

“So, I know last time didn’t really work out, but Amai’s having people over to play cards again...”

Sakura flashed a guilty smile. “Oh. It’s just...Ino made appointments for us at the spa...I’m sure she’s just using me as an excuse to go, but...”

Karin’s attention slipped as her mind alerted her to movement far away in Hot Water Country, a pinprick of her consciousness speeding east across the land at a significant rate. She’d almost forgotten about her passive tracking of Sasuke since the Kido incident, and his breakneck pace brought her back to his presence. She hadn’t detected any other near-copies of his chakra signature since Kido and Magire had been taken prisoner by Konoha, and she didn’t see the point in keeping track of him anymore. Whether his current flight was an escape from an enemy or simply showing off to a friend, she didn’t know and she didn’t want to know. As she released the tag on him from her mind’s eye, she noticed the weird dip in her heart, and she wished she didn’t care.

“Karin?”

The kunoichi in question blinked her attention back to her girlfriend, who had a concerned expression darkening her features. Karin smiled and waved her hand in front of her face, as if her lack of concentration were nothing meaningful.

“Sorry, just spaced out thinking about how nice it would be to get a massage,” she explained.

Sakura chewed on her bottom lip. “You could come too if you want. Or we could go another time, together.”

“Go relax, you deserve it with how hard you’ve been working lately,” Karin said breezily. After some thought, she added, “And, if you happen to pick up any techniques...I’ll be up pretty late...”

A slow smile slipped across Sakura’s face, fleeting as a shadow from a cloud passing overhead, and then she was crushing Karin to her chest with her strong arms as if she were dedicated to wringing every last bit of air from Karin’s lungs.

~~

Karin could have spent her time at Amai’s ruminating on what it would mean to her to have to go through Kusa to get to Iwa, but she didn’t. Instead she won three hands of poker (only one of which was because of cheating), taught Tsuchibachi how to riffle shuffle cards, and discovered a sweet pastry snack unique to Suna that she would sorely miss when they left.

When she felt the vague fog of Sakura’s chakra approaching from the distance, she said her goodbyes, which were met with a fair amount of protests and whining. She had to physically remove Tsuchibachi from curling into a ball around her ankle, something which amused her for several reasons. By the time she was finally able to extract herself from Amai’s apartment, she could sense Sakura already waiting at her door.

Sakura was soft and sleepy and more calm than Karin had ever seen her. She hugged Karin as soon as she came close, and her skin was soft and smelled like flowers and tea. She had the most serene look on her face that Karin didn’t want to disturb with words. As she unlocked and opened the door, Sakura floated past the threshold as light and airy as a soap bubble.

The former Grass nin had tried a sip of Amai’s sake, which she knew wasn’t enough to make her drunk, but the way Sakura twirled about through her moon-soaked room had her feeling quite intoxicated. She left Sakura to her own devices while she changed into her pajamas in the bathroom, after which she came back to find Sakura in bed, already snuggled up under the blanket.

Karin couldn’t help herself from chuckling quietly. “Damn. I’m gonna need the name of that spa so I can book an appointment for myself.”

Sakura said something that was muffled by the fabric piled on top of her. Karin removed her glasses and stowed them under the bed before joining Sakura underneath the warm plush covers.

“What was that?” she asked. She was laying on her side, mirroring Sakura. The medinin reached both of her hands out between them and clasped onto Karin’s.

“Breaks are nice,” Sakura repeated sagely, which caused Karin to laugh.

The night crept quietly on. Karin’s consciousness began to fade. She knew that Sakura hadn’t fallen asleep first, but she was still surprised to hear her speak up again.

“By the way, how on earth did you get Naruto to read?” Her voice was thready but steeped in awe, like someone looking at all of the stars in the night sky and realizing just how small they were.

Karin took her time answering, mostly because she was fighting back sleep. She shifted closer to Sakura until their foreheads bumped together. She could feel Sakura’s warm breath tickling across her cheeks.

“I just...told him about my idea for the teleportation jutsu I’ve been researching, and he mentioned his dad could...At first I thought it would be a security threat for villages, but then...only people with a huge amount of chakra could even be capable...and the distance would affect...”

Her words were mixing together and trailing off. She felt Sakura nuzzling closer, and she strained to answer the question.

“Then I started thinking...it could be used to help people. You know, with faster medical responses, and Naruto...he wants to help everyone...”

Karin yawned and the dull tingling of sleep cascaded through her. She had noticed how intently Sakura was listening, but she was beginning to feel like she was slowly descending.

“People helped him his whole life. Without them he wouldn’t be where he is today. He just wants to return the favor. Y’know how he is. Got a savior complex the size of Wind Country,” Karin finished.

“That’s...”

Karin couldn’t actually tell if Sakura had said something, or if it were just the sound shushing sounds of the sheets against her clothes.

“That’s what makes him strong. He always accepts help from others. He’ll always keep learning and growing. It’s not easy...”

The knots in Sakura’s chakra that had been loosened during her time at the spa untangled themselves completely. The tension that had been building inside her seemed much more approachable. She sighed, and lightly kissed Karin’s cheek, which Karin would have noticed had she not already been fast asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one more chapter after this, let's go!!!
> 
> I think this chapter and the next chapter were originally multiple chapters that got combined, so that's why they're a little longer (if that's even noticeable). 
> 
> Anyway I love the idea of Naruto and Karin being the cutest found family, and Karin being all fussy and mothering towards him. I also love that he tells her about that one filler episode about Kakashi's mask that we all clearly remember lol.


	19. Chapter 19

They were three quarters of the way to Kusa before the first nightmare hit. Karin was completely caught off guard. It'd been so long since she last set foot anywhere near the Hidden Grass Village, and all her memories of the place were washed out and translucent when she tried to conjure them up in her mind.

She wasn't the same scared little orphan dizzy from the smell of antiseptic and too tired from the people literally sucking the life out of her to move. She knew she could most likely walk into that old hospital—if it were even still standing—and kill every single person inside if she wanted. She didn't want to, by the way. Because she didn't care anymore. And she'd been reassuring Sakura for weeks leading up to their departure that she couldn't care less about traveling through the old haunt.

So, it came as a biting shock when she jolted awake in the dead of the night, gasping for breath and trying to clear her eyes of the dashed red line marching its way across her vision. Even though she had bolted upright, she felt like there was a fist on her chest pressing her down, _holding her still so the other patients could—_

Beside her in their shared tent, she felt Sakura snap awake and come to her side.

"Karin! Karin...?"

_Ruby red beads glinted on pearl white skin. She watched a soldier force her mother to her knees, twisting her arms behind her back. Her pores cried thick bloody tears as she was dragged away from her daughter for another day of servitude. Karin had been up all night with a fever. It was one of the few times her mother had put up any resistance._

"Karin."

Sakura's hand glided gently down her back, steady as raindrops sliding down glass. _Warm like blood dripping down her skin._

Karin pitched forward, away from the touch. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes in an effort to stymie the tension building behind them. At the very least, she wanted to push the memories back in.

But Karin was too agitated to wait any longer. She shifted into a crouch, ready to leave the tent. _A walk might clear her head, calm her down._ The atmosphere in the tent was too closed, too stifling.

"I just—uh—I just—" It was the first time she'd spoken since waking up and her voice was high and thin and young. She turned to look at Sakura, to communicate her intentions without speaking since she couldn't.

Muted pinks and cool reds swam across her vision, reminding her that she wasn't wearing her glasses. She started to reach for the space above her pillow when she felt Sakura shift towards her again.

"Here."

She took her glasses from the medi-nin, and the cool wire rims in her palm leeched away some of the afterimages of the nightmare. She stared at the glasses in her hand for five full seconds while an itch rose up in the back of her brain like there was something that she was forgetting. Unable to figure it out, she eventually put on her glasses and directed her gaze back to Sakura.

The jounin appeared ready for anything.

Karin tried to speak again, but her mouth wouldn't open. Instead, she figeted with her glasses and tried to focus on the grounding sensation of the chilly metal on her skin.

"You want to go for a walk?" Sakura prompted, once it became clear that Karin wasn't going to say anything.

Karin took a shallow breath as the racing of her heartbeat began to taper off.

"Yeah," she affirmed, and then they were both making their way out into the relaxed drizzle constant in Rain Country.

~~

Sakura was assigned to scout ahead in the morning. She offered to take Karin along—they could make time to dip into town along the way if Karin needed to pay anyone a visit—but Karin was resolute in staying outside of the village limits.

"I'm not going out of my way for an opportunity to see anyone from back then. I kind of wish they're all dead, but I don't care enough to check. What's done is done. I have other shit to do now."

Two minutes before Sakura took off, Karin's words rang true as one of her lab teammates, Mikoshi, went into anaphylactic shock from a bug bite. Being surrounded by a team of medical professionals, he was taken care of right away without complication, and Sakura didn't miss how Karin stayed by his side to monitor his vitals even after Ameno gave him the all-clear. The sight gave Sakura an odd sort of relief that allowed her to get on with her scouting duties.

Kusa had been informed that their squad would be passing through, so she kept her eyes peeled for any patrols or concealed special forces from Grass. The only thing she found as she made her way north were chipmunks and rabbits and birds. The sky began to clear up too, which Sakura attributed to the fact that they were moving farther away from the miserble Rain Country.

By mid-morning, Sakura had reached the outskirts of the Blood Prison. Predictably, this area was teeming with strong chakra signatures, mostly clustered in and around the prison, but Sakura could pick out some patrols or lone guards in the surrounding area. She was sure that the prison staff had been notified of their group's travel plans as well, but she gave the spot a wide berth just in case. At the rate she'd been going, she could return to camp by noon if she didn't get caught up in any extraneous affairs.

Just before she reached the border where Grass met Earth Country, she felt a familiar presence flickering in the back of her mind. Before she could fully think through what he would be doing here, she sensed another presence, unfamiliar, and heading straight for her.

She backed up against a tree and drew a kunai as both presences closed in, and her mind immediately drew a parallel to the situation with Kido and his Sasuke-clone. There wasn't time for her to verify the chakra signature because the stranger came into her line of vision first.

"Stop right there," Sakura called out warningly.

The unknown kunoichi was petite and wore no markings indicating allegiance to any particular village. She wore a sweet smile on her face which turned sharp and hostile as she took in Sakura's defensive stance.

_A missing-nin?_

Cold blood trickled through her ears as the kunoichi's eyes flashed red.

"Kai!" Sakura averted her gaze and released the doujutsu before it even took hold.

Sasuke's chakra swelled again, cold and imposing, though Sakura still couldn't see him. She didn't have time to look as the diminuitive woman showed no hestitation to close the distance between them, an action which set off alarm bells in Sakura's head. Shinobi that specialized in doujutsu or genjutsu were usually long to mid range fighters. It didn't make sense that this kunoichi would so easily enter close range combat with a stranger unless she was equally as proficient or had another trick up her sleeve.

Sakura leapt to the side, barely dodging a blow from the kunoichi's outstretched fist. She saw the kunoichi twisting in mid-lunge, correcting her strike for Sakura's dodge, and Sakura had to shunshin her way behind the tree. She could feel a heated force coming from the blonde's arm that had her feeling woozy even without contact.

There were more trees this far north in Grass Country, but still not an appreciable amount in comparison to Konoha or Taki. And there were no boulders like in Earth or Wind Country. Their arena was flat and nearly featureless, the long grasses from which the hidden village got its name were most concentrated in the south. It wasn't long before her assailant was in her space again, reaching out with a chakra that seemed almost magnetic in the way that Sakura couldn't quite shake.

The Leaf shinobi pounded her fist into the ground, shattering the earth beneath them both, and giving her a breath of repreive as the unknown nin seemed caught off balance. With the half a second she was afforded, Sakura scanned the area, seeking out where Sasuke or a Sasuke-clone could be hiding. When she didn't see him still, she had a horrible thought that she may have been trapped in a genjutsu long before she saw the rogue.

Her stomach felt full of cold rocks, but she swung around to meet the rogue shinobi head on, countering a strike with her chakra-hardened forearms and pushing her back.

"Release!" she commanded again, and when nothing changed, she channeled her frustration into her fists.

Her opponent didn't seemed surprised by her strength, only maddeningly amused, and as Sakura pressed forward she began to see just how nimble her tiny opponent was. _Nimble but stupid_. If they kept up this commotion, the prison guards would notice their flaring chakra and come to investigate. Sakura had permission to be here. _Did this person? Could she be an escaped prisoner?_

Her opponent nicked her leg with a kunai, but unlike an ordinary scrape, something about this wound was wrong. Juding by the force and the angle of the blade's glance, Sakura knew she shouldn't be bleeding so much, and the way the skin around the site felt hot was another concern. She dropped to a crouch and brought her not-injured leg around, sweeping the attacker's legs. As the ninja fell, Sakura aimed a sturdy punch between the woman's violet eyes. The kunoichi dodged, barely, and it was at that moment that Sakura saw his sweeping cloak out of the corner of her eye.

Sasuke—or whoever that was—was making his move. This was Sakura's chance as well. She pulled back, jumping into a butterfly kick that the missing-nin ducked. She saw the kunoichi's blade out, and she twisted to angle her body so that the edge would slice across a pouch on the back of her hips where she kept dried herbs. As the petals spilled out and whipped around in the current of air caused by Sakura's spinning jump, she made the hand seals for the jutsu she had been practicing in Suna.

As she landed, she saw the kunoichi's eyes tracking the scattering petals. Neither opponent had been prepared for her to spring her own genjutsu.

She pulled them into her own world, a black and white space that she had spent so much time moping around as an angsty teenager. As the giant Oinaru Sakura rose up from the depths of the vast nothingness, with Sasuke and the rouge kunoichi gripped in each of her hands, Sakura felt a sense of poetic justice. _How many times had Inner Sakura raged because of Sasuke?_ Now she could crush him in her fist, and the feeling of his heart pounding like cornered rabbit against her palm was satisfying in a last-piece-of-the-puzzle kind of way.

"Sakura, what are you doing? It's me," Sasuke hissed through gritted teeth.

Now that Sakura had the clear advantage, she had enough time to take stock of her captives. She still didn't recognize the kunoichi, but she could tell from the chakra signature that the Uchiha she had caught was the real deal. She didn't loosen her grip.

"Your friend over there attacked me. Why should I trust you?"

"Chino attacked you? Or did you challenge her?"

All the time spent in Suna, hell, even in Konoha after Sasuke had left, Sakura had been left with plenty of time to think. She thought about Team 7. She thought about Naruto. She thought about Ino, and the weird competition they'd had over the moody Uchiha. She thought about Ino and Sai and how technically she'd 'won.' As if she'd ever really wanted to 'win.' She hadn't put much thought into how she'd feel if she actually ever saw Sasuke again.

He left the village, and that seemed to be the end of Team Kakashi's story. Even Naruto, _who never let anything go_ , had given back that scratched forehead protector and _moved on_ with his life. Sakura didn't think Team 7 would ever reunite, save for maybe at the inauguration ceremony when Naruto eventually became Hokage.

Had she thought about what an earlier encounter would be like, she certainly wouldn't have expected this. She might have thought that she'd feel angry, indignant, ready to yell at him for all the grief and strife he'd caused that they'd never really hashed out. Naruto and Sasuke had reconciled at the Valley of the End and during the lengthy trial that Sasuke was subject to after the war had ended. Sakura and Sasuke had never had an opportunity to address the bad blood between them.

_She'd even offered to accompany him on his atonement journey, just for a little while, just to clear the air. Of course he had said no. Maybe he had mistaken her intentions, or maybe he was just still that kind of person._

But now, seeing him in person, she didn't feel much of anything. Not hatred. Not deep-seated unsettling resentment. Nothing. He had the same chakra signature and the same elegant bone structure, the same presumptious aura about him—even as he squirmed for breath—he was the same, and yet, he was different in ways that made her feel like she was looking at a stranger.

He was older than before, obviously, with longer hair and a thinner face. His chakra wasn't as ice cold as it had been, and he wasn't fighting dirty to get out of her genjutsu even though he probably could. His eye not hidden under hair roamed towards the kunoichi at his side, and Sakura noticed some sort of concern there—nothing she had ever experienced as his teammate, not even when he'd saved Naruto from Haku.

It was like meeting an old acquaintaince, and Sakura realized that maybe that was all this was. She'd known Sasuke since they'd both started the academy at five years old, and he'd left Konoha at 13. She'd known him seven years. Then, he'd been gone for seven years. This was some kind of weird turning point for her.

She released the genjutsu. Chino collapsed to the ground, hands clutching her neck, gasping for breath. Sasuke fell to his hands and knees, choking and shuddering. Even after he caught his breath, he stayed down, his head bent to the ground in submission to show that he wasn't going to be a threat.

"Get up." Sakura directed. Her voice was firm, and to her surprise, relatively neutral. "Get up and explain, now."

~~

"I'm _fine_. _Really_. You're being worse than my mother whenever I leave the village," Mikoshi huffed.

Karin scowled at him.

"Bastard! I'd knock some sense into that empty head of yours if you hadn't just almost died," she grumbled sourly.

Most of her displeasure with his allegations came from her slowly growing opinion that he might be right. _Where the hell had this mothering instinct come from?_ She thought back to how she'd babied Naruto before he left Suna, and she pinned the blame to him, silently cursing his name.

_Damn Uzumaki._

_Damn Uzushio._

"I'll just get Amai to monitor you then. I'm sure you won't have any objections to that," she added, needling him.

His face had previously been red from the allergic reaction he'd had, but the swelling and redness had gone down considerably since someone from the medical team had treated him. A bit of the redness came back at the mention of Amai.

"I-I don't care! I don't need to be monitored anymore!" he spluttered, totally unconvincingly.

Karin rolled her eyes, then got up to exit the tent where he was resting.

"Yeah, sure. Well Shizune-sensei says you need monitoring, and she's the one running this whole show, so I'm afraid someone has to babysit your ass." Karin turned to smirk at her fellow labmate. "Might as well be him, right?"

He fidgeted with his glasses and kept his mouth buttoned shut like he didn't want to say anything else incriminating. Karin left, and as promised, sought out Amai to take her place. She didn't have to go very far, as he was already sitting outside of the tent. To no one's surprise, he was happy to accept.

She milled around camp for a little while after and finally settled next to where Ruka was animatedly giving some kind of history lesson to an equally enthusiastic Tsuchibachi.

When Karin felt Sakura's chakra bunch up and then release in a way that could only mean she was engaging in some kind of confrontation, her whole body stiffened. Both Ruka and Tsuchibachi noticed, and their conversation ceased as they both turned to look at her.

"What's wrong?" Tsuchibachi asked.

Karin tried to pinpoint Sakura's exact location in her mind's eye, and when she sussed out the general area, she was able to notice the chakra of Sakura's attacker as well as—

_Sasuke?_

"Sakura," she said tersely, her sight completely focused interally through her mind's eye. "I've got to help her."

She was gone in a flash, before either of her coworkers had a chance to give any response. She focused on Sakura's location, and for once in her life she was grateful for having grown up in Kusagakure. As she raced across the wide plains and over the gently sloping knolls, she was sure that there was no faster route to get to where she needed to be. Though, she did interally curse herself for not studying teleportation justu more. Maybe she shouldn't have stopped researching after finding out about the Hiraishin. Maybe she should have sent Naruto back to Konoha earlier, or demanded that he return to Suna with some results before Rotation left for Iwa...

Then there was Sasuke. And she had made sure that the chakra signature belonged to the actual Sasuke Uchiha and not a copy or impostor. She'd stopped tracking him a while ago, after no other clones of him had popped up, and she was sure that she didn't need to continue expending chakra to keep tabs on the original. He'd been somewhere in Hot Water Country when she'd last noted his location. _So what would he be doing all the way in Grass Country now? And who was he with? Why did it seem like Sakura was attacking both him and the other ninja?_

Konoha had given Sasuke such a leninent sentence after the war. Karin remembered being surprised that the other four Kage had accepted the outcome. As someone who had once allied herself with Sasuke, she couldn't quite fathom how all five villages were okay with letting a former international terrorist wander freely outside of his village wherever he pleased. She didn't understand, and she hadn't wanted to put much effort into trying to understand. _Sasuke was—he didn't matter anymore. Their lives were separate and what he did or didn't do wasn't her problem anymore. He didn't have any influence in her life anymore._

Much like her time spent in Kusa, her time spent with Sasuke was another era that she could keep bundled up in its own distinct compartment in her mind. Even the incident with the Sasuke clone didn't really blur those lines, since a clone was just a clone after all. Facing Sasuke again now after all this time, and possibly—no, _likely_ —as an enemy would be—

She was a kunoichi, and protecting Sakura was her goal. When she got to the scene she would analyze the situation and act accordingly. She was a kunoichi, and this kind of situation was squarely within her wheelhouse of expertise. _She was a kunoichi, and she coud do this_.

She was back in Grass with a second chance to rescue the one she loved. She wouldn't falter.

The group was far up north, nearly to Earth Country, which was evident as the sparse trees began cluster together to form a forest. As Karin drew closer, she could sense that none of the trio were moving, and upon closer inspection, she picked up a dizzying amount of chakra waveforms that indicated some kind of genjutsu war was being waged. It made her stomach lurch to try and analyze that tangle of power for too long, so Karin kept her focus on getting to the site as soon as she could.

By the time Karin burst onto the scene, Sasuke and the other ninja were released from Sakura's genjutsu. Karin only had a few seconds to decide what that meant as she didn't slow her pace in approaching the three shinobi.

_Sakura had caught Sasuke and the other in the genjutsu she had been practicing, which meant that it hadn't failed. Did Sasuke counter with his own? The newcomer with Sasuke also had some kind of doujutsu judging by the red eyes, could both of them have repelled Sakura's genjutsu with their own? Had Sakura released them purposely? Could this have been a misunderstanding?_

Not wanting to take any chances (or pass up an opportunity which she hadn't known she'd been craving for _years_ ) Karin drove her fist into the side of Sasuke's jaw. She felt a splintering crunch vibrate through her knuckles as Sasuke launched into the air from the force of her punch. He landed on his side and skidded across the slick grass. When he stopped moving, everyone was still for a beat.

His partner with the glowing red eyes didn't attack. Sakura didn't make a move towards Sasuke or the other ninja. Sasuke stayed on the ground for two loud, wet, shuddering breaths before pushing himself up just enough to see Karin.

_His Sharingan was activated. He should have known she was coming. His partner would have known too, judging by her eyes. And Sakura, even though she wasn't a sensory ninja, would have been able to recognize her chakra when she'd come close enough._

It was as if they'd all collectively decided to let it happen.

Karin looked around, now fully bewildered. All eyes were on her, waiting for her to decide what was going to come next.

She focused her attention on Sakura, then Sasuke. His jaw was dislocated and probably broken. He wasn't a good candidate for Heal Bite at the moment, and something about that realization made her want to laugh. Instead she turned to Sakura and, nearly hysterical, asked, "Can you heal him?"

Sakura nodded and wordlessly made her way over to her former teammate, her hands flaring with blue healing chakra as she dropped to one knee by his side. Sasuke's companion stayed where she was, doujutsu still active, but she seemed satisfied to just observe the situation.

Karin took a step, and then another towards where Sakura was healing Sasuke. She watched the soft thready blades of grass swish across her open-toed boots. Pausing, she looked back over her shoulder to the rolling plains that were so symbolic Kusagakure and that had been etched into her mind since she had been a small child. Turning forward again, she could see where the land became Earth Country. They were near the fortress where she'd been stationed when Orochimaru had picked her up. All the paths in her life converged at this point, and when she rubbed away the memories from her eyes, her vision focused on the two ninja on the ground in front of her.

Sasuke and Sakura.

Kusa had never felt like home to Karin, but she hadn't even realized just how different her life could have been until the chuunin exams in Konoha. The other teams competing against hers worked cohesively as units, a strategy her team lacked. She'd witnessed shinobi from different teams from different villages helping each other out during the round in the Forest of Death. Her own life had been saved by a shinobi from a different village, by Sasuke himself.

When she'd seen the Uchiha again at one of Orochimaru's underground lairs, she'd felt as though it was some sign of the universe that she was on the right track. And for a while, her whole world revolved around Sasuke, until it didn't.

She thought back to how Sakura had healed her after his attempt to take her life. The irony that Sakura was now healing him from her own grievous blow did not escape her. She hadn't had the intention to kill him. What had been unimagineable for so long—that he hadn't intended to kill her that day on the bridge—now read differently as she played the memory back.

In some ways she'd been right about him being a big important huge part of her life. He wasn't the freedom she was seeking, and he couldn't give her the attention or affection that she so sorely lacked. He had never been destined to be in her life for a long time. But, there were aspects to him where she clearly saw herself reflected.

Family that left. Villages that looked at them with suspicion.

His brief but intense hatred for Konoha and her simmering resentment of Kusa.

Having second chances to help build a better world where what happened to them wouldn't happen again.

“ _Actually, you know, about Kido...I was thinking about the new mental health clinics we’ve been opening at the hospitals, and how they might prevent future cases like his from happening...”_

Sakura's voice echoed in her mind, and her chest tightened and her mind fluttered closed. The giddy feeling that she'd fought off moments earlier suddenly overhwhelmed her, and she sunk to the ground, laughing and laughing and laughing then she was crying and sobbing and riping up chunks of grass and earth until the last breath she'd been holding ever since her time in Kusa finally escaped her.

~~

The impromptu scuffle drew the attention of the nearby prison guards, and Sakura ended up having to explain the misunderstanding, since Sasuke and Chino didn't stick around for much longer. She was amused, however, when after having his jaw healed and spitting some blood on the ground, he looked Karin straight in the eye and deadpanned, "I deserved that."

Chino had seemed a bit bemused but not all that surprised.

Sakura was once again tasked with this responsibility when she and Karin returned to camp where Shizune was waiting with questions, though the Rotation Director's eyes considerably softened with understanding once she heard mention of Sasuke. A few members of the team had actually met the two kunoichi on their waay back, concerned over the way that Karin had bolted without giving much of a reason, but they had managed to stifle their curiosity so that Sakura and Karin didn't have to go over the details multiple times.

The rest of the camp was charged with nervous energy for the rest of the day, from both the incident with Mikoshi and then with Sakura and Karin. They made much more progress than initially planned and set up camp firmly within Earth Country's borders. With their arrival in Iwa taking over the forefront of everyone's minds, chatter shifted from the day's events to assimilation into Iwa's medical program and all of the tasks that would go along with it.

Sakura watched the camp from a tree branch where she and Karin had been lounging since dinner. Beneath them, Tsuchibachi was loudly arguing with Shizune in an attempt to gain her permission to live with family instead of in some crummy temporary housing.

"Never a dull moment," Sakura mused as she ran her fingers through the long red strands of Karin's hair.

Karin's head was resting in Sakura's lap, and she closed her eyes like she could ignore all the sounds beneath them. She yawned, and when she spoke, her voice was thick with sleepiness. "Homesickness, I guess."

A gentle wind lifted the words right out of her mouth and carried them away, soft and light. Sakura had spent so much time worrying over how Karin would feel traveling through Grass Country, and to some extent, her worries had been justified. Though, she could also admit to herself that her fears had been far off from bizarre twists and turns that life acutally took.

She brought her palm to rest on Karin's forehead and admired the strong pulse of chakra under her hand. For Karin, home wasn't the place she was born or the place she grew up. Home was...it wasn't even a fixed place. Sakura couldn't exactly pinpoint what 'home' meant for Karin, but she thought she was beginning to understand another perspective of the word. Earlier, when she'd seen Sasuke, he'd seemed at home in a way he'd never been in Konoha. Realizing that, the last bit of anger she'd held for him slipped away.

Seeing Sasuke after so long was unexpected, and at first she hadn't been able to process all the feelings that were stirred up. To Sakura's surprise, her feelings quickly settled down as she and Karin returned to camp. Although she recognized that their run-in with Sasuke was probably weird for Karin too, she wasn't sure what to say outside of explaining the misunderstanding at their initial encounter. Karin had laughed and moved on with another subject, and Sakura thought that maybe that was all there was to it.

The breeze came again, rustling the leaves around them and pushing the branches of the tree to sway delicately. Sakura felt her eyes close half-way. She was tired from the days events, and her brain was ready to accept all that had happened and keep moving forward.

So, she was surprised when Karin, without even opening her eyes, brought up Sasuke.

"Y'know, it's fucked up what he did all those years ago on the bridge, and I'll never forgive him for it. Even if he thought you were bluffing, that you wouldn't...It's still shitty and unforgivable. But I don't need to forgive him to get past that.We can start over. Kusa too. I can just let all that shit go..."

Sakura shifted her eyes down and stared at the undisturbed features of her girlfriend's face. There were faint lines between her eyebrows from her frequent squinting. Light from the sun, which was low in the sky, highlighted the bridge of her button nose and painted shadows underneath the bottom lip of her small mouth. Sakura bent forward just a little more to fully absorb the peaceful glow that was radiating from Karin's skin.

“Also, _maybe_ I’ll send a postcard to Suigetsu. Damn weirdo shark bastard. He wasn’t so bad. Sasuke might not have the best judgment, but he sure fell ass-backwards into some good friends.”

Karin opened one eye.

"And, he kind of led me to you, so...I guess I have that to thank him for."

Sakura smiled and looked away, casting her gaze into the sky. The sunlight glanced across her cheeks and nose with a steady warmth. She stretched her back, pushing her chest forward as if to present her own shining heart to the sun. Even the wind quieted, only rising up to fan the persistant flames.

Sakura let her thoughts float back to Iwa. _They'd probably arrive in three or four more days..._

The arguing under them eventually subsided, though neither of them had been paying attention enough to know the outcome. Sakura watched Shizune make her way back to her tent. A question rose to the tip of her tongue, and in the next breath after Shizune disappeared into her tent, Sakura asked it.

"When we get to Iwa, do you...? Would you want to...look for an apartment together?"

She sucked in a breath that burned her throat as she waited for an answer.

Karin snorted a stifled laugh. "Oh, uh. I mean. When we agreed to share a tent on the way over, I thought that meant...I thought that was already the plan."

Sakura let out her breath. She was beaming. "It is."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been waiting for Karin to punch Sasuke in the face for 18 chapters now. God knows he deserved it.
> 
> Anyway, this was the last chapter, so if you made it this far (or read any part of this and are now reading this note), thanks! I'm glad I can share the ongoing "but what if Naruto ended like this instead" that my brain constantly makes me think about every day of my life with you. 
> 
> 2020 has been really bizarre, but like, one...thing (unsure if this is actually positive or negative, but definitely a thing) was that I was consistently writing and posting fanfiction pretty much all year. I'm sure that means this will be followed by a six year writing hibernation or something (I'm kidding. I really have no idea).
> 
> Well that's it! Thanks again, and see you next time maybe, lol.
> 
> Peace, love, and Naruto <3


End file.
